When it was read, the poem was instantly acclaimed; Pilkey’s visual interpretation fully—and joyfully—honors it.
The creator of Captain Underpants returns to the painterly style of his Caldecott honor book, Paperboy (1996), to illustrate Blanco’s poem, written for President Barack Obama’s second inauguration.
Pilkey chooses a landscape orientation to capture the poem’s sea-to-shining-sea epic sweep, giving readers three characters—a pigtailed black girl, a red-capped white boy, and a black cat—to follow through the titular day. They leave their house as the sun rises, wander benign city streets and play in parks while their mother works, then pick her up at the end of the day to return home in “the plum blush of dusk.” He doesn’t confine himself to simply mirroring the poem’s abundant visual images, instead adopting a kaleidoscopic approach that uses the sun’s diagonal rays to control compositions. Some double-page spreads are multiply fractured, capturing the nation’s busyness, while others are solemn and contemplative, as in a low-angle, blue-dominated image of the children from waist down that accompanies the lines commemorating “the empty desks of twenty children marked absent / today, and forever.” Trucks, school buses, and bridges form visual leitmotifs; a saturated, pastel palette modulates with the poem’s moods; cityscapes are made welcoming with softly rounded horizon lines; the seasons change with the text of the poem across this “one today,” taking readers from spring to winter.
When it was read, the poem was instantly acclaimed; Pilkey’s visual interpretation fully—and joyfully—honors it. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-37144-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter.
A love letter to libraries.
A Black child, with hair in two puffballs tied with yellow ribbons, a blue dress with a Peter Pan collar, and black patent leather Mary Janes, helps Grandmother with the housework, then, at Grandmother’s suggestion, heads to the library. The child’s eagerness to go, with two books under an arm and one in their hand, suggests that this is a favorite destination. The books’ wordless covers emphasize their endless possibilities. The protagonist’s description of the library makes clear that they are always free to be themselves there—whether they feel happy or sad, whether they’re reading mysteries or recipes, and whether they feel “quick and smart” or “contained and cautious.” Robinson’s vibrant, carefully composed digital illustrations, with bright colors that invite readers in and textures and patterns in every image, effectively capture the protagonist’s passion for reading and appreciation for a space where they feel accepted regardless of disposition. In her author’s note, Giovanni states that she spent summers visiting her grandmother in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she went to the Carnegie Branch of the Lawson McGhee Library. She expresses gratitude for Mrs. Long, the librarian, who often traveled to the main library to get books that Giovanni could not find in their segregated branch. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A lushly illustrated homage to librarians who provide a welcome and a home away from home for all who enter. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-358-38765-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Versify/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
There’s always tomorrow.
A lyrical message of perseverance and optimism.
The text uses direct address, which the title- and final-page illustrations suggest comes from an adult voice, to offer inspiration and encouragement. The opening spreads reads, “Tonight as you sleep, a new day stirs. / Each kiss good night is a wish for tomorrow,” as the accompanying art depicts a child with black hair and light skin asleep in a bed that’s fantastically situated in a stylized landscape of buildings, overpasses, and roadways. The effect is dreamlike, in contrast with the next illustration, of a child of color walking through a field and blowing dandelion fluff at sunrise. Until the last spread, each child depicted in a range of settings is solitary. Some visual metaphors falter in terms of credibility, as in the case of a white-appearing child using a wheelchair in an Antarctic ice cave strewn with obstacles, as the text reads “you’ll explore the world, only feeling lost in your imagination.” Others are oblique in attempted connections between text and art. How does a picture of a pale-skinned, black-haired child on a bridge in the rain evoke “first moments that will dance with you”? But the image of a child with pink skin and brown hair scaling a wall as text reads “there will be injustice that will challenge you, and it will surprise you how brave you can be” is clearer.
There’s always tomorrow. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-99437-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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