A classic reboot that feels fresh.
A small rosebud living in her cozy underground space is urged by two new friends to sprout above the earth and blossom into a beautiful flower.
Feeling safe in her warm, dark home, Rosebud is disturbed by Rain’s knocking and then Sun’s cheery rustling at the window. These new friends insist that Rosebud allow them to enter, giving her the necessary ingredients for growth. With Rain and Sun’s encouragement—“Poke your head through!”—little pink Rosebud finds herself in a blooming spring garden. Shand retells a story originated by the early-20th-century children’s storyteller Bryant, ever so lightly desentimentalizing it while retaining the feel of the simple, repetitive dialogue of the original: “It’s the Rain and the Sun.…It’s the Sun and the Rain.…And we want to come in! We want to come in!” Opaque colors create a small, brown-toned room with door and curtained window and a surprised Rosebud sitting in a large green armchair. The smiling faces of a sun and a puffy white cloud represent Rosebud’s uninvited, equally anthropomorphized visitors. A careful review of the room reveals a clock on the wall with the four stages of germination, hinting at the story’s theme, which culminates aboveground in the glowing greens and pastels of springtime. A brief addendum relates the process. Though the scientific explanation is rudimentary, the fictional narrative employed will make it accessible to young listeners.
A classic reboot that feels fresh. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4867-1555-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful.
Life buzzes in a community garden.
Surrounded by apartment buildings, this city garden gets plenty of human attention, but the book’s stars are the plants and insects. The opening spread shows a black child in a striped shirt sitting in a top-story window; the nearby trees and garden below reveal the beginnings of greenery that signal springtime. From that high-up view, the garden looks quiet—but it’s not. “Sleepy slugs / and garden snails / leave behind their silver trails. / Frantic teams of busy ants / scramble up the stems of plants”; and “In the earth / a single seed / sits beside a millipede. / Worms and termites / dig and toil / moving through the garden soil.” Sicuro zooms in too, showing a robin taller than a half-page; later, close-ups foreground flowers, leaves, and bugs while people (children and adults, a multiracial group) are crucial but secondary, sometimes visible only as feet. Watercolor illustrations with ink and charcoal highlights create a soft, warm, horticulturally damp environment. Scale and perspective are more stylized than literal. McCanna’s superb scansion never misses, incorporating lists of insects and plants (“Lacewings, gnats, / mosquitos, spiders, / dragonflies, and water striders / live among the cattail reeds, / lily pads, and waterweeds”) with description (“Sunlight warms the morning air. / Dewdrops shimmer / here and there”). Readers see more than gardeners do, such as rabbits stealing carrots and lettuce from garden boxes.
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1797-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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