Inconsistent, but an evergreen topic.
Meditations about crying.
“Sometimes, when our hearts hurt, our eyes fill up and we cry,” opens the text, thankfully segueing quickly to a less-cloying register. Much of Delacroix’s piece is straightforward and affirming, explaining who cries—“Everyone cries. Little kids. Big kids. / Once in a while, grownups cry”—and why: “Crying cleans our messy feelings,” and after doing it, “we feel lighter, ready for new adventures.” One page undermines this acceptance: Across from a child portraying the “times we keep [tears] to ourselves” (face buried in arms) is a child portraying the times “we want our tears to be seen” with a dramatic hand gesture, a theater spotlight, and curtains evoking a stage. Readers shy about crying may shrink away if they think their weeping could be seen as a theatrical performance. Cryptic details pop up: “Crocodiles, with their thick, scaly skin, cry too”—but the young audience will likely have no context for crocodile tears, either metaphoric or biological; “sometimes even trees weep”—but is that an unspoken weeping-willow pun, a reference to transpiration, or something deeper? Art combines teardrop patterns with a photorealistic drawing style, mostly black-and-white, featuring shading and big-eyed close-ups of the two White-presenting children who are featured. Cleverly, tears threatening “to wash everything away” form an ocean; a rising hot air balloon drops a ballast bag of tears; and one child’s tears form a park fountain.
Inconsistent, but an evergreen topic. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77147-422-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school...
The familiar theme of the challenges facing a new kid in town is given an original treatment by photographer Border in this book of photos of three-dimensional objects in a simple modeled landscape.
Peanut Butter is represented by a slice of white bread spread with the popular condiment. The other characters in the story—a hamburger with a pair of hot dogs in tow, a bowl of alphabet soup, a meatball jumping a rope of spaghetti, a carton of French fries and a pink cupcake—are represented by skillfully crafted models of these foods, anthropomorphized using simple wire construction. Rejected by each character in turn in his search for playmates, Peanut Butter discovers in the end that Jelly is his true match (not Cupcake, as the title suggests), perhaps because she is the only one who looks like him, being a slice of white bread spread with jelly. The friendly foods end up happily playing soccer together. Some parents may have trouble with the unabashedly happy depiction of carbs and American junk food (no carrots or celery sticks in this landscape), and others may find themselves troubled by the implication that friendship across difference is impossible.
Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school experiences. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16773-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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
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