Figurative and grounded—a nicely sophisticated exploration.
In a free-wheeling style and going far beyond the usual pairings of colors with moods, Jamie describes his day’s emotional path.
He begins on the sofa, bopping to music from his headphones: “I’m in a mood… / A being kind of mood… / A purple kind of mood / Cold-plum eating / Grape-juice drinking / On the couch / Bobbing to the beat kind of mood.” Pushy, mocking older brothers send Jamie stomping into “a gray kind of place / Storm brewing inside / That I hide / ’Cause I don’t want any trouble space / Dark and swelling / Looming / Gloomy gray kind of place.” But at the basketball court, Jamie’s competence reigns: “Fake left, slide right / Swish! and swish! / Sweet orange mood.” Evans’ digital collages, made with oil paint and graphite, buzz with motion and angle. Figures have lively eyes and eyebrows but awkwardly immobile mouths. Most spreads emphasize multiple versions of one hue (cool and warm purples; cool and warm yellows), while clothing and the browns of skin and hair provide highlights. A cheerful family meal and some peaceful dishwashing bring Jamie back full circle to his “living, breathing / Cold-plum eating / Being kind of mood,” a realistically complex combination of pleasure, security and centeredness. This isn’t the easiest scansion to read aloud, but it’s worth it.
Figurative and grounded—a nicely sophisticated exploration. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-01285-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
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
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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