A lovely, comforting, and wide-reaching tale about finding similarities in children regardless of their cultures, marred by...
Children around the world may speak different languages, but pacifiers remain a cross-cultural item, according to this tale for toddlers.
Lewinson (Hands, 2015, etc.) opens the story in Mexico, where young Maria and her doll (muñeca) both suck on their chupones. Next, blond-haired, green-eyed Sarah from the United States shows how she can avoid eating her spaghetti by sucking on her “paci.” Swedish Niles takes a nap with his napp while dreaming of playing hide-and-seek (kurragömma). Each setting features a child, the word for pacifier in that kid’s language, and another word from the youngster’s culture. Lewinson and illustrator Griffin (Spacing Out!, 2015, etc.) feature boys and girls in similar proportion, though children with blond hair have a somewhat lopsided representation. Lewinson highlights nations worldwide, including Israel, Russia, Germany, Australia, Congo, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and India. The overall message of finding connections across the boundaries of geography and language rings clear, even for young lap readers, who are likely to see at least one child in the text who provides them with a mirror. The structure is easy for children to grasp, and the beautiful images, particularly the ones featuring a boy dreaming of flying on a magic carpet and a girl riding on an elephant, are appealing. But while the text tells readers that Niles is dreaming about hide-and-seek, the picture shows sheep jumping over a fence. In addition, Lewinson’s choice of spellings for non-English words is mystifying. He relies on phonetic spellings rather than depicting the actual words, which are likely to aid adults and very early readers in sounding out unfamiliar terms. Unfortunately, the text doesn’t show features of the languages, such as tildes and acute accents, making the words unrecognizable to many readers. Likewise, Griffin’s children, while wonderfully realistic and diverse, tend to be on the old side to be using pacifiers. German Simone, playing tag with her friends, looks like an early elementary student rather than a preschooler, and Irit from Israel is described in the text as a kindergartner. For parents trying to wean their children off pacifiers before they attend school, these examples are problematic.
A lovely, comforting, and wide-reaching tale about finding similarities in children regardless of their cultures, marred by some strange choices in language presentation and the ages of its cast.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9853602-5-2
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Swordpen Publishers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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