Wrapping up on a comforting note sure to set toddlers’ heads bobbing, this fanciful vision of what happens in the wee hours...
Children will be tickled to see the wee hours of the morning come to life as irresistible, toddlerlike imps in this whimsical tale.
Wee Hours One through Four, all carefully numbered, arrive one by one in a sleeping child’s bedroom upon their associated clock-strike (youngsters will eagerly search for the clock in each spread to double-check the time). Each mischief-maker pulls a little something from the slumberer’s dreams and incorporates it into playtime: One O’Clock bounces the sun like a ball; Two teaches the birds tricks; Three frees the horses for a jumping contest; Four releases the dinosaurs and leads all the creatures in a parade. All the while, the cat and goldfish look on, but the sleeper is never roused. The text has a cadence that lightly trips along. Luminous pastel illustrations—full-spread, characterized by reassuringly plump, rounded lines and innocently joyful faces, and featuring increasingly free-wheeling, off-kilter perspectives—capture the action. Just when the rumpus seems about to burst right out of the book, Five O’Clock arrives. Like a big brother, he soothes the Wee Hours with stories and back rubs and begins to clean up, aided by Six and Seven O’Clock.
Wrapping up on a comforting note sure to set toddlers’ heads bobbing, this fanciful vision of what happens in the wee hours is the delightful nonsense of dreams. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4231-4038-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.
You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!
What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0534-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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