A delightful and satisfying snowy-day story, with the subtle advantage of a main character with a Spanish name.
A lovable lamb ventures out into the snow, playing with friends and getting lost when night falls.
Little Pablo is excited to see his first snowfall, which he perceives as “pieces of clouds” falling from the sky. He leaves his parents and their cozy barn to step out into the deep snow, where he enjoys sledding, a snowball fight, and building a snowman with his animal friends. When Pablo falls asleep next to the snowman, another snowstorm rolls in, leaving the lamb lost and afraid in the dark. In a satisfying conclusion, Pablo’s parents find their son and escort him back to the safety of home. Charming watercolor illustrations make excellent use of white space as the snowy backgrounds, capturing the light-filled brilliance of a snowy afternoon and contrasting effectively with the slightly spooky setting of the nighttime scene with dark trees and swirling snow. One arresting double-page spread shows a petrified Pablo all alone in the snowy forest, but another spread showing the snowman is hard to understand visually as the snowman is split vertically in half by the gutter. Pablo’s adventurous day encapsulates the traditional elements of a hero’s journey: leaving home, experiencing new pleasures, facing danger, and finding the way back home again, wiser for the lessons learned in the wider world.
A delightful and satisfying snowy-day story, with the subtle advantage of a main character with a Spanish name. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62779-412-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together.
A clueless duckling tries to make a new friend.
He is confused by this peculiar-looking duck, who has a long tail, doesn’t waddle and likes to be alone. No matter how explicitly the creature denies he is a duck and announces that he is a cat, the duckling refuses to acknowledge the facts. When this creature expresses complete lack of interest in playing puddle stomp, the little ducking goes off and plays on his own. But the cat is not without remorse for rejecting an offered friendship. Of course it all ends happily, with the two new friends enjoying each other’s company. Bramsen employs brief sentences and the simplest of rhymes to tell this slight tale. The two heroes are meticulously drawn with endearing, expressive faces and body language, and their feathers and fur appear textured and touchable. Even the detailed tree bark and grass seem three-dimensional. There are single- and double-page spreads, panels surrounded by white space and circular and oval frames, all in a variety of eye-pleasing juxtapositions. While the initial appeal is solidly visual, young readers will get the gentle message that friendship is not something to take for granted but is to be embraced with open arms—or paws and webbed feet.
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-86990-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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