A colorful and cute celebration of the winter holiday.
A gingerbread family celebrates Christmas.
“In a gingerbread house, / lives a gingerbread man.” This gingerbread man has a whole family: a wife who loves baking, a daughter who “sleds / through buttercream snow,” a baby playing with gingerbread toys, and even a dog with a gumdrop nose. The family is enjoying generic winter activities; there’s no explicit mention of Christmas in the text, though the gingerbread house has a wreath over the door and a Christmas tree inside. Little readers will enjoy the candy-colored, rounded illustrations and the book’s complementarily rounded contours. Companion title Christmas Elves explicitly focuses on Santa’s (ethnically diverse) elves preparing for the big day. (Santa himself is white.) Both books are narrated with abcb rhyming schemes emphasizing the pleasures of the season. Little readers excited for Christmas will certainly enjoy, and parents will appreciate the swift read that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
A colorful and cute celebration of the winter holiday. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0364-8
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver.
The farmyard's chickens experience Halloween.
A round, full moon shines in the sky, and the chickens of Boynton's barnyard are feeling “nervous.” Pumpkins shine “with flickering eyes,” witches and wizards wander the pastures, and one chicken has seen “a mouse of enormous size.” It’s Halloween night, and readers will delight as the chickens huddle together and try to figure out what's going on. All ends well, of course, and in Boynton's trademark silly style. (It’s really quite remarkable how her ranks of white, yellow-beaked chickens evoke rows of candy corn.) At this point parents and children know what they're in for when they pick up a book by the prolific author, and she doesn't disappoint here. The chickens are silly, the pigs are cute, and the coloring and illustrations evoke a warmth that little ones wary of Halloween will appreciate. For children leery of the ghouls and goblins lurking in the holiday's iconography, this is a perfect antidote, emphasizing all the fun Halloween has to offer.
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7611-9300-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to.
This simplified version of Diesen and Hanna’s The Pout-Pout Fish (2008) is appropriate for babies and toddlers.
Brief, rhyming text tells the story of a sullen fish cheered up with a kiss. A little pink sea creature pokes his head out of a hole in the sea bottom to give the gloomy fish some advice: “Smile, Mr. Fish! / You look so down // With your glum-glum face / And your pout-pout frown.” He explains that there’s no reason to be worried, scared, sad or mad and concludes: “How about a smooch? / And a cheer-up wish? // Now you look happy: / What a smile, Mr. Fish!” Simple and sweet, this tale offers the lesson that sometimes, all that’s needed for a turnaround in mood is some cheer and encouragement to change our perspective. The clean, uncluttered illustrations are kept simple, except for the pout-pout fish’s features, which are delightfully expressive. Little ones will easily recognize and likely try to copy the sad, scared and angry looks that cross the fish’s face.
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-374-37084-8
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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