This sweet tale of ingenuity and kindness to all creatures tries, but it does not fully measure up to its potential.
How do you stop elephants from trampling your orchard, damaging your trees, and destroying your ripe clementines every night?
Young Fatima, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and brown-skinned, lives with her bearded, turbaned grandfather in an unnamed country. They take care of their clementine orchard, which is their livelihood, with the help of the spiders that eat tree-destroying insects. But when those sweet, ripe clementines attract an elephant mama and two baby elephants, neither loud noises, buckets of water, nor thrown pistachios will distract them. How can their trees and their fruit be saved? Grandfather buys a rifle and three bullets, but can Fatima find a more peaceful solution? She encourages her spider friends to spin a thick wall of webs around the orchard, which repels the elephants. Illustrations by Grimard are gorgeous, mostly in warm hues of orange, brown, and blue, with expressive faces and hardly any specific ethnic touches. The text, dramatic and occasionally heavy-handed, is Messier’s own translation of her French text, first published in 2012. The book concludes with an adaptation of the Ethiopian proverb that says “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion,” rendering it as “When spider webs unite, they can stop elephants” and calling it simply a generic “African proverb.”
This sweet tale of ingenuity and kindness to all creatures tries, but it does not fully measure up to its potential. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-88995-529-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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