Overstuffed and not entirely successful, this follow-up is nonetheless fun and entertaining.
This return visit to Happy County following series opener Hello, World! (2020) includes informational sections along with brief narratives, search-and-find challenges, lots of labels, and many visual jokes.
Once again there are 18 chapters, mostly two pages each. The action takes place over two days and two nights with the Sun and the Moon depicted in both factual and fanciful fashion. Small stories feature a grandmother’s visit, a filmmaker’s frustration, a hot air balloon mishap (solved with ingenuity by the Bright Brothers), an entrepreneurial snake gardener, and a backyard campout. Sections between the stories provide basic facts, with varying success, about the water cycle, photosynthesis, the phases (or “faces”) of the moon, tides, planets, and solar power. In addition to feeling slightly arbitrary despite their ties to the moon and sun, these informational sections are generally too brief to be truly informative, most obviously in the explanation of low and high tides. Occasionally awkward phrasing further weakens the overall appeal. Despite these flaws, there is plenty to like about Long’s busy artwork and the (mostly) anthropomorphic animals that populate his cheery community. Luckily, the format lends itself to reading sections independently as well as sequentially. Fans of the first book will be amused by spotting Farmer Del, still chasing L’il Beaky, on some spreads while readers new and old will enjoy catching the clever puns and learning a wide variety of vocabulary words. (This book was reviewed digitally with 12-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Overstuffed and not entirely successful, this follow-up is nonetheless fun and entertaining. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-19174-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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