This will interest kids who love their vehicles, but the text simply doesn’t take flight.
The author of Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site (2011) moves on to a different kind of vehicle with this rhyming story about the invention of alternative sleighs for Santa’s Christmas Eve deliveries.
Just two weeks before Christmas, Santa’s elves discover that his usual sleigh, stored away for a year, has been damaged. The elves decide to hold a contest to build a new sleigh, with Santa choosing the winning entry. Twelve teams are formed, with one new invention revealed over each of the next 12 days. The sleighs are wildly imaginative, with different types of power and similarities to actual modes of transportation. On Christmas Eve, one rebel elf who has worked alone reveals Santa’s original sleigh restored to pristine condition. Santa opts for this traditional choice, so the elves take off on a race with their new inventions. The text uses varying rhyme schemes, starting off well but becoming more difficult to read as the story progresses. Several terminal word pairs do not rhyme correctly, slowing readers down. Busy, bright illustrations capture the intricacies of the unusual inventions and the antics of the elf crew. The elves appear androgynous, some with light skin and some with brown skin; a few have gray hair. Notably, the elf who restores Santa’s beloved sleigh has brown skin; Santa is white.
This will interest kids who love their vehicles, but the text simply doesn’t take flight. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4521-4514-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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