The best part of this slim title is the final page, which pictures all the animal mothers with their appropriate names....
A breezy book aimed at young readers touches upon the unique terms for 27 animal mamas.
A smallish trim size and cutesy, close-up illustrations executed with Prismacolor pencils contribute to a feel that this book is aimed at the toddler and early-preschool set. Clipped, rhyming language poses questions that may surprise with their answers. The spread that queries, “did you know not all COWS moo?” shows seal, elephant, hippopotamus and rhinoceros mother-and-child pairs, since each of these animal mamas is referred to as a “cow.” A traditional-looking chicken and chick introduce the term “hen,” which a page turn reveals also happens to be used for a female octopus, crab and lobster. Some pages may confuse, since not every pair of creatures featured gets a mention in the text—“Mommy is the QUEEN of clean” focuses on a sunny yellow cat and her kitten, but in the near background is a nanny goat and her kid. While potentially useful for introducing new terminology on an ever-popular topic, the pictures have a mass-produced quality that fails to charm, and the final spread of the book is a lackluster stringing of puns: “There’s no other PEN [a female swan] pal like her! DOE…you love me? / Oh, I love EWE.”
The best part of this slim title is the final page, which pictures all the animal mothers with their appropriate names. Consider only as an additional purchase. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: March 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8027-2826-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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