A visual, day-in-the-life adventure that can be used to stimulate literacy-rich conversations with children.
Superheroes can come in all shapes and sizes.
In this Canadian import, Saya, a toddler with big dark eyes and dark hair, is heading to the park with her dad on a sunny day. Pushed along the sidewalk in her stroller, she sees two cats squabbling and flings her stuffed bunny, Kunoichi (a Japanese word meaning female ninja), toward them, dissolving the feline conflict. Readers soon see that Saya and Kunoichi are a covert superhero team. Over the course of the day’s outing, they stop another toddler’s stroller from rolling away on the bumpy bus ride, rescue a duckling who’s fallen through a sewer grate, and deflect a baseball before it hits a White child at the playground. Dad, utterly unaware of the heroics transpiring right under his nose, patiently retrieves the plush toy time and time again en route to the story’s sweet ending. Children will appreciate the compelling graphic format of this wordless picture book. The illustrations are rendered in a muted palette, and inset panels and splash pages are used to good effect, adding drama and focusing the reader’s attention on Saya’s and Dad’s emotional responses. The story will resonate with young readers who believe their stuffies, too, can save the world. The main characters present as Japanese Canadian. Background characters are diverse and include a woman wearing a hijab.
A visual, day-in-the-life adventure that can be used to stimulate literacy-rich conversations with children. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4598-2780-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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