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FLORA AND THE PEACOCKS

Design, engineering, and art intersect to deliver a virtuoso interpretation of the pitfalls and pleasures of triads.

While Idle’s previous titles (Flora and the Flamingo, 2013, etc.) feature her young, white dancer with a single avian partner, this story presents a pas de trois.

The challenge, therefore, is how to manage balance: on the stage, across a double-page spread, among friends. The choreography creates the narrative in this wordless performance, with opportunities for audience participation via flaps. In the opening scene, a fan-wielding Flora poses alone; the peacocks are paired. Wispy willow branches form a proscenium arch atop the extravagant white backdrop. The dancers are arrayed in coordinated teal and green splendor with yellow highlights. When one bird crosses the gutter, a dance ensues on the verso, a drama on the recto. The birds’ parallel symmetry is now inverted: the partners reach up, the lone peacock disdainfully displays downward. As Flora plants a foot on each page, readers decide whether to make tails match or contrast. They are also the agents for a tug of war over the fan. Idle’s nuanced postures and expressions capture the peacocks’ wounded pride perfectly. When the fragile prop breaks in a climactic close-up, the despondent protagonist stalks off the page. The birds find a solution, and a glorious gatefold, measuring 18 by 33 inches, puts a joyful Flora at the center of a dazzling and harmonious display.

Design, engineering, and art intersect to deliver a virtuoso interpretation of the pitfalls and pleasures of triads. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: May 3, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4521-3816-9

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

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THE WONKY DONKEY

Hee haw.

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The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.

In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.

Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: May 1, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1

Page Count: 26

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018

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