Whether read during the day or at bedtime, this consoling story of adventure, getting lost, and sibling rescue will create...
Little Sister Rabbit has some freedom, but she’s not ready for total independence.
She sets out purposefully and without her older brother, walking through the countryside, messing around in puddles, making boats to float on the river, and skipping stones on the lake. By the time she starts doing cartwheels, she’s been gone several hours and gets “so dizzy that she didn’t know where she was.” She tries to find her home but finds other animals’ instead. She sees a group of older rabbits, one in a wheelchair, studiously playing chess. In another burrow, she meets Mr. Badger, “an old and very grand gentleman.” Her third visit is to a foxes’ den, but at least these dangerous animals are sleeping peacefully (although they are “growling in their dreams”). This last encounter is very scary. But when she really needs him, who should be calling “Little Sister Rabbit!” but Big Brother. “He reached for her paw, and told her, in a gentle and comforting kind of way, that she must be more careful.” This language is indicative of the calmly sweet character of the text. The delicately evocative illustrations, in a quiet green, brown, and gold palette, feature amusing little touches, such as the frogs who watch the young rabbit as she skims her stone. This import from Sweden via Scotland, originally published in 1987, is joined by a companion of similar vintage, Little Sister Rabbit and the Fox.
Whether read during the day or at bedtime, this consoling story of adventure, getting lost, and sibling rescue will create good feelings. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78250-377-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Too many bugs, figuratively.
Lucy, “the youngest member of a family of fireflies,” must overcome an irrational, moon-induced anxiety in order to leave her family tree trunk and glow.
The first six pages pull readers into a lush, beautiful world of nighttime: “When the sun has set, silence falls over the Big Forest, and all of the nighttime animals wake up.” Mixed media provide an enchanting forest background, with stylized flora and fauna eventually illuminated by a large, benign moon, because the night “doesn’t like to catch them by surprise.” Turning the page catches readers by surprise, though: the family of fireflies is decidedly comical and silly-looking. Similarly, the text moves from a lulling, magical cadence to a distinct shift in mood as the bugs ready themselves for their foray into the night: “They wave their bottoms in the air, wiggle their feelers, take a deep, deep breath, and sing, ‘Here we go, it’s time to glow!’ ” It’s an acceptable change, but more unevenness follows. Lucy’s excitement about finally joining the other bugs turns to “sobbing” two nights in a row. Instead of directly linking her behavior to understandable reactions of children to newness, the text undermines itself by making Lucy’s parents’ sweet reassurances impotent and using the grandmother’s scientific explanation of moonlight as an unnecessary metaphor. Further detracting from the story, the text becomes ever denser and more complex over the book’s short span.
Too many bugs, figuratively. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-84-16147-00-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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