Visually offbeat and beautiful.
Transfixing artwork shows a boy’s imagination running wild on the potential ramifications of pet sitting.
When schoolmate Sophie asks Jake to care for her fish, Yo-Yo, for a weekend, he agrees, because “[h]ow hard can it be to babysit a fish?” But while waiting for Yo-Yo to arrive, Jake begins to worry. “What kind of snacks do fish like to eat?” he frets. White presents a massive Strawberry Worm Cake as a possible fish snack; standing atop the highest layer, Jake offers a slice to a laughing blue fish he finds sitting upright on a wire chair. The fish is as big as Jake. Next, Jake wonders, “[w]hat if Yo-Yo wants to play a game?” Here, the portrayed fish is several times Jake’s size, dressed as a pirate and riding an enormous rubber ducky. Watercolor dominates the mixed media, inventively complemented by collage and drawing. Lines dance playfully around the shapes they’re meant to outline, sometimes sliding off a shape’s edge, sometimes bleeding into the watercolor. Tidbits of collage, sometimes of patterned paper, are fascinating yet never loud. Jake’s shorts are watercolor, but his shirt is collaged plaid; the tissues the fish weeps into look like tiny cut-out photos; flower petals are delicate newsprint. Jake calms his fears just in time—well, just in time for the shocking Yo-Yo to arrive.
Visually offbeat and beautiful. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-01291-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
The runaway cookie in this Mexican bakery is a soft, brown, stubby-tailed piglet as impertinently bold and smug in his continual escape as his Gingerbread Boy cousin. “Chase me! Chase me down the street. But this is one piggy you won’t get to eat! / ¡Córrele, córrele! ¡Y Córrele más! ¡Soy el cochinito que jamás comerás!” This bouncy dual refrain extends the familiar cumulative text, rendered in both English and Spanish, as piggy manages to elude Marta the baker, Lorenzo the mechanic, Mamá Nita the beautician, Joaquín the telephone repairman and a host of other neighborhood adults—until he is outsmarted by Rosa, a little girl on her way to school, who foxily “helps him” cross the street. Safely tucked into her backpack, piggy is both a welcome surprise and an excuse for Rosa’s lateness to class. Deep opaque acrylic paintings of a colorful barrio and its residents in pursuit add the right amount of cultural flavor to this vivid Latino retelling. Recipe appended. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55885-586-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
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