An often engaging work that may help to allay fears of readers young and old.
A young girl dislikes a loud storm but uses her imagination to calm herself and her military veteran father in Brehl’s illustrated children’s book.
Risa is playing at the beach when a thunderstorm approaches. She runs to her house and says, “A STORM Daddy! Make it stop!” He tells her that he wishes that he could and that it will be over soon. He reassures her that she’s safe and encourages her to play in her room. As the wind howls and the waves pound, Risa tells her stuffed elephant, Ivan, not to be scared. When there are loud thunderclaps, she runs to Daddy again. Risa feels his heart racing, and he says that when he was young, he loved storms, and “skies were stages for my imagination.” (Hirsch’s upbeat illustrations show clouds playing instruments and riding on a ship and a whale.) But Daddy says his stories won’t help Risa, because they changed when he was a soldier; this is demonstrated by images of menacing animals. When the youngster looks at the skies, she sees golden elephants, including a baby one that looks like Ivan, led by a daddy elephant; Risa declares that the elephant family is safe, and the daddy elephant is shown fending off dangerous creatures. Daddy claims he also sees the golden elephants, and now his heartbeat is steady. Over the course of this book, Brehl presents a story that may help readers whose experiences mirror the characters’—particularly those in military families with members who struggle with PTSD. In the illustrations, Ivan, the stuffed elephant, is delightfully drawn with a heart on his body; his eyes widen with surprise at a loud crash, as if he’s a living creature. Interestingly, Risa’s father is depicted in Hirsch’s work as having a prosthetic leg, which is never directly addressed in the text—an effective narrative choice. Lavender shading is intriguingly used to indicate fear.
An often engaging work that may help to allay fears of readers young and old.Pub Date: July 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-952894-32-9
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Pen It! Publications, LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.
A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book.
The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept—shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665954761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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