A love story with design elements and harmonious illustrations that might spread its appeal from children to adult readers...
A snowflake meets a drop of ink in midair in this dreamy, creatively designed import.
Carried after a “particularly long time” by silver clouds toward a town, Snowflake looks through a series of lacy white die-cut screens at possible landings: a boat on a canal, a colorful circus tent, children on a playground. But just as the wind whispers “Go now!” a draft whirls him upward again, directly toward a falling drop of ink that is “shiny, dense, round, beautiful.” Meanwhile, a drop of ink waiting to be used by her artist catches enticing glimpses of brightly hued landscapes and other paintings through black pages of irregular, blot-shaped holes, until her bottle is jarred and she flies out the open window to an unexpected rendezvous. The two stories, bound dos-à-dos, meet in the middle on a climactic (in every sense of the word) double gatefold in which images of stars and rolling ocean, animals and people, light and dark whirl together: “They had endless stories to tell each other. Their embrace lasted forever.” The surreal plotline, plus the peekaboo pleasures of viewing each scene partially through the cutouts and then in full, will draw viewers too young to appreciate the story’s erotic aspects, but the latter lie at its rapturous heart.
A love story with design elements and harmonious illustrations that might spread its appeal from children to adult readers looking for an unusual wedding gift and beyond. (Picture book. 6-8, adult)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59270-186-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
The message is worthy, but this phoned-in follow-up doesn’t add anything significant.
A color-themed vision of what school should be like.
In what amounts to a rehash of The World Needs More Purple People (2020), Bell and Hart address adult as well as young readers to explain what “curious and kind you” can do to make school, or for that matter the universe, a better place. Again culminating in the vague but familiar “JUST. BE. YOU!” the program remains much the same—including asking questions both “universe-sized” (“Could you make a burrito larger than a garbage truck?”) and “smaller, people-sized” (i.e., personal), working hard to learn and make things, offering praise and encouragement, speaking up and out, laughing together, and listening to others. In the illustrations, light-skinned, blond-haired narrator Penny poses amid a busy, open-mouthed, diverse cast that includes a child wearing a hijab and one who uses a wheelchair. Wiseman opts to show fewer grown-ups here, but the children are the same as in the earlier book, and a scene showing two figures blowing chocolate milk out of their noses essentially recycles a visual joke from the previous outing. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
The message is worthy, but this phoned-in follow-up doesn’t add anything significant. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-43490-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
An awesome-tastic invitation to have or share thoughts about bad and better choices.
Actor Tatum’s effervescent heroine steals a friend’s toy and then lies about it.
Thrilled about an upcoming play date with new classmate Wyatt, Sparkella considers her own sparkly stuffies, games, and accessories and silently decides that he’d be more interested in her friend Tam’s remote-controlled minicar. While she and Tam are playing together, Sparkella takes the car when Tam isn’t looking. Tam melts down at school the next day, and Sparkella, seeing her “bestest friend” losing her sparkle, feels “icky, oogy, and blech.” And when Wyatt comes over, he turns out to be far more entranced by glittery goods than some old car. When Sparkella yells at him—“WYATT, YOU HAVE TO PLAY WITH THIS CAR RIGHT NOW!”—her dad overhears and asks where the toy came from…and along with being a thief, Sparkella turns out to be the worst. Liar. Ever. She eventually confesses (her dad forgives her), apologizes (ditto Wyatt and even Tam), and goes on to take part in a three-way play date/sparklefest. Her absolution may come with unlikely ease, but it’s comfortingly reassuring, and her model single dad does lay down a solid parental foundation by allowing that everyone makes mistakes and stressing that she is “never going to be punished for telling the truth in this house.” He and Sparkella present White, a previous entry cued brown-skinned Tam as Asian, and Wyatt has brown skin in Barnes’ candy-hued pictures. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An awesome-tastic invitation to have or share thoughts about bad and better choices. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781250750778
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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