It's hard to quibble with Dino Boy's appeal, his cheerful sense of adventure and the app's beautiful design. The punctuation...
An artful bundle of cuteness, marred only by some careless errors in the accompanying text.
In this series opener, a cherubic child in a thickly padded dinosaur costume moves to the city with his parents. Once there, he finds a slide that transports him from his hand-drawn, animated home to a photorealistic world of storefronts and street corners. The story's shift from Dino Boy's world to ours is handled nicely; against a photographed backdrop, he appears as an illustrated paper cut-out. Apart from its refreshing art style, it also differs from most storybook apps by allowing the story to branch off in one of three different directions when Dino Boy must choose whether to explore a toy store, a playground or a museum in order to get back home. Gorgeous page-turn transitions offer extra artwork between the story pages. And, in a design choice that makes the app more fun (but could prove frustrating), readers can't advance until they press the right object on screen to unlock a page-turn icon. If the story's text were as sharp and attuned to detail as the rest of the app, it would be nearly perfect. But, unfortunately, it sometimes forgets apostrophes and can't consistently settle on "Dino Boy" or "Dino boy."
It's hard to quibble with Dino Boy's appeal, his cheerful sense of adventure and the app's beautiful design. The punctuation problems don't ruin an otherwise lovely app experience. (iPad storybook app. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Three Thumbs Up
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of...
An international story tackles a serious global issue with Reynolds’ characteristic visual whimsy.
Gie Gie—aka Princess Gie Gie—lives with her parents in Burkina Faso. In her kingdom under “the African sky, so wild and so close,” she can tame wild dogs with her song and make grass sway, but despite grand attempts, she can neither bring the water closer to home nor make it clean. French words such as “maintenant!” (now!) and “maman” (mother) and local color like the karite tree and shea nuts place the story in a French-speaking African country. Every morning, Gie Gie and her mother perch rings of cloth and large clay pots on their heads and walk miles to the nearest well to fetch murky, brown water. The story is inspired by model Georgie Badiel, who founded the Georgie Badiel Foundation to make clean water accessible to West Africans. The details in Reynolds’ expressive illustrations highlight the beauty of the West African landscape and of Princess Gie Gie, with her cornrowed and beaded hair, but will also help readers understand that everyone needs clean water—from the children of Burkina Faso to the children of Flint, Michigan.
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of potable water. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17258-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
A wandering effort, happy but pointless.
The perfect book for kids who love dragons and mild tacos.
Rubin’s story starts with an incantatory edge: “Hey, kid! Did you know that dragons love tacos? They love beef tacos and chicken tacos. They love really big gigantic tacos and tiny little baby tacos as well.” The playing field is set: dragons, tacos. As a pairing, they are fairly silly, and when the kicker comes in—that dragons hate spicy salsa, which ignites their inner fireworks—the silliness is sillier still. Second nature, after all, is for dragons to blow flames out their noses. So when the kid throws a taco party for the dragons, it seems a weak device that the clearly labeled “totally mild” salsa comes with spicy jalapenos in the fine print, prompting the dragons to burn down the house, resulting in a barn-raising at which more tacos are served. Harmless, but if there is a parable hidden in the dragon-taco tale, it is hidden in the unlit deep, and as a measure of lunacy, bridled or unbridled, it doesn’t make the leap into the outer reaches of imagination. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range.
A wandering effort, happy but pointless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3680-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
