When Baby Loon’s mother fails to return, he faces a frightening experience. Baby and Mama Loon live in a soft, warm nest on a small lake in the great north woods. One day Mama submerges to find dinner since Baby can’t dive yet. As he waits, Baby paddles and floats, but soon he’s worried. Mama’s never been gone so long. Determined to find her, Baby puts his head under the water and flip-kicks his feet, making wee dives. When it starts raining, Baby realizes he’s “tired and hungry, cold and wet and lonely, and lost,” and emits a “sinking, giving-up cry.” Suddenly a familiar head surfaces with Baby’s dinner in her beak, and a relieved Baby shows off his new kick-flip all the way home. The simple text tracks Baby’s progression from waiting to worrying to fear to anguish while loosely rendered watercolors in blues, greens and grays textured with pen-and-ink cross-hatch visually follow Baby’s descent into despair. Close-ups show worried Baby repeatedly dipping underwater, his web feet kick-flipping as he frantically searches. Aerial views emphasize Baby’s solitary state as his tiny form paddles alone. In one double-page spread, a stunned Baby bobs amid choppy waves, and in another, a drenched, agonized Baby wails. Guaranteed to hit the mark with anyone who’s ever felt lost and alone. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-25487-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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
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