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WHAT IF...?

Name: WHAT IF...?
Author: Thierry Lenain
ISBN: 978-1-59270-281-7

by Thierry Lenain ; illustrated by Olivier Tallec ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 30, 2019

Sobering and provocative

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“A child sat on his island, looking out at the world and thinking.”

He sees a world full of miseries: war, famine, hegemony, pollution, and sorrow. For each, he imagines a transformation: “What if we lasso the clouds and bring rain to the desert?...What if we wash [the ocean] clean?” In Tallec’s painterly scenes, the child is defined by swift pencil lines, the only color to him his red cheeks and pants—the rest is white. He is placed on negative space, swaths or spots of white that share the spreads with the painted depictions of destruction and evil. It’s a novel visual approach to a familiar theme, subverting what readers may expect by making the reality appear more concrete than the possibility and mostly leaving the what-if’s in readers’ imaginations. Some spreads are at once more pointed and more obscure than others: When the child sees “the powerful gorging, ordering, shouting, and decreeing,” he stands in front of a TV set tuned to a smug-looking politician and thinks, “We have to open their eyes or drive them out.” Open the eyes of the two people watching from the couch? Drive out the powerful? Exactly who those pronouns refer to can spawn a conversation all by itself. At the end, readers learn why the child appears so ephemeral: He doesn’t yet exist but has decided he has the resolve to be born.

Sobering and provocative . (Picture book. 5-10)

Pub Date: April 30, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-59270-281-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books

Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE ZIZI
by Thierry Lenain & illustrated by Stéphane Poulin & translated by Daniel Zolinsky

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

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How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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TINY T. REX AND THE IMPOSSIBLE HUG

by Jonathan Stutzman ; illustrated by Jay Fleck ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2019

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.

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With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?

Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)