Engaging and true to the message.
Chapin and Forster’s unofficial Earth Day anthem gets a picture-book treatment.
A song that once woke astronauts in space becomes a story told on double-page spreads through White’s whimsical illustrations. A brown-skinned girl with Afro-puff pigtails, a brown-haired White boy, and a white rabbit take off on a bed with a star-patterned coverlet for a dreamlike journey. Carried by a balloon, their flight begins in fantasy. They land on a mushroom planet and admire fanciful constellations. A rocket takes them into space so they can see the spinning Earth. On their return, things are even more surreal. The Earth becomes a spinning record in a landscape with a sleeping lion and dinosaurs. The rabbit rides a dinosaur and, later, helps build one out of snow. Once again carried by the balloon, they float over the river of history, which gradually becomes more dingy and acquires trash. Suddenly the “pretty planet” is a smoke-filled industrial dump. The rabbit weeps. But they set to and clean up (shown effectively in a sequence of panels). Once again, the world is “a holy place.” Appropriately for a picture-book narrative, they end up back in bed. Their room is filled with reminders of their journey. The many allusive details in the illustrations will make adults smile and keep child readers coming back for more. The song is included, scored once for keyboard or guitar and once as a round. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 85.5% of actual size.)
Engaging and true to the message. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4532-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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