The inanimate denizens of the kitchen nab the limelight in this somewhat uneven, amusingly illustrated collection of 20 short poems. Much of the verse employs personification—the refrigerator, pot holder and rolling pin drolly narrate their own poems. In others, the narrative voice becomes oddly anonymous, as in the two-line poem “Freezer”: “Cold as ice / But no goose bumps.” Tired initial simile aside, the question of goose bumps seems an odd introduction in a collection focused on objects. Mathers’s light touch redeems this same double spread with a funny, sneak-peek interior: A fish juggles lima beans atop a carton of strawberry ice cream, near a box of “Hungry Dude” pizza. Some poems stand out for their playful metaphors and puns: “Toaster” is “Jack-in-the-box / For bread”; “Paper Towels” enjoins “ . . . Don’t stop me now—I’m on a roll.” Mozelle brings the precision demanded by the short form to many, but not all, of these poems. Mathers’s cheerfully quirky watercolors notwithstanding, this collection neither falls flat nor rises above. (Poetry. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-8050-7143-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
Summertime fun.
Summer vacation is the stuff children’s dreams are made of.
This collection of verse begins with that first day a child can sleep in instead of being woken up for school by the alarm clock (“BEEP-BEEP-SNOOZE”) and ends with the first day back at school. In between, full-color cartoon illustrations and short, upbeat poems, usually one per page, explore how children in diverse communities spend their summers. They line up on the sidewalk after hearing “the jingle jangle of the ice-cream truck!” They cool off by playing on a backyard slip 'n slide or by visiting the neighborhood pool, the lake, or the beach (where a child builds a sand castle only to see it washed away and another listens to a seashell). Summer also means a family road trip with all-too-frequent rest stops and a motel stay with treats like a giant TV, “teensy soaps and teensy shampoo / and beds made for bouncing.” A trip to an amusement park is captured in a creative shape poem about the thrills of a log ride and playful font changes that emphasize the ever changing perspective found on a Ferris wheel. Summer also includes going to camp as well as camping out in the backyard and enjoying s’mores and an astronomy lesson from Grandpa. As in the creators’ other Here I Come! books, the verse is peppy, with details sure to get kids jazzed, brought to life by the exuberant cartoon art. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Summertime fun. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-38721-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
