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AVA'S SPECTACULAR SPECTACLES

Name: AVA'S SPECTACULAR SPECTACLES
Author: Alice Rex
ISBN: 978-1-61067-712-7

by Alice Rex ; illustrated by Angela Perrini ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2018

Clever, but a few smudges will keep readers from seeing this with 20/20 vision (spectacles or not).

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Ava works out her love-hate relationship with her specs in this Australian import with a fairy-tale twist.

Sans glasses, Ava is miserable in class. It isn’t long before her teacher, Mrs. Cook, takes notice. As it turns out, Ava didn’t forget her glasses; she hid them in her schoolbag because she hates them. Mrs. Cook uses the teachable moment to reimagine fairy tales in a pro-glasses light. For instance, if Little Red Riding Hood had just put on glasses, wouldn’t she have seen the wolf’s teeth and eyes? Wouldn’t Humpty Dumpty have stayed on the wall? Wouldn’t Little Bo-Peep have kept her sheep? After each new story, Ava’s confidence grows. She eventually puts the glasses on and—voilà!—she can see again. Perrini’s digitally colored pencil drawings offer large illustrations and a limited but effective color palette. The art takes a metafictive turn by depicting the fairy-tale scenes in panels, while Ava and Mrs. Cook comment from outside the frame. Though there is some diversity among Ava’s classroom peers, all the fairy-tale characters appear to be white. Moreover, without sufficient character development (why so much hate for glasses?), the book veers into didactic territory, and Ava becomes a plot device.

Clever, but a few smudges will keep readers from seeing this with 20/20 vision (spectacles or not). (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 1, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-61067-712-7

Page Count: 24

Publisher: Kane Miller

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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THE NIGHT IS YOURS

by Abdul-Razak Zachariah ; illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 2, 2019

Vital messages of self-love for darker-skinned children.

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On hot summer nights, Amani’s parents permit her to go outside and play in the apartment courtyard, where the breeze is cool and her friends are waiting.

The children jump rope to the sounds of music as it floats through a neighbor’s window, gaze at stars in the night sky, and play hide-and-seek in the moonlight. It is in the moonlight that Amani and her friends are themselves found by the moon, and it illumines the many shades of their skin, which vary from light tan to deep brown. In a world where darkness often evokes ideas of evil or fear, this book is a celebration of things that are dark and beautiful—like a child’s dark skin and the night in which she plays. The lines “Show everyone else how to embrace the night like you. Teach them how to be a night-owning girl like you” are as much an appeal for her to love and appreciate her dark skin as they are the exhortation for Amani to enjoy the night. There is a sense of security that flows throughout this book. The courtyard is safe and homelike. The moon, like an additional parent, seems to be watching the children from the sky. The charming full-bleed illustrations, done in washes of mostly deep blues and greens, make this a wonderful bedtime story.

Vital messages of self-love for darker-skinned children. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: July 2, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-525-55271-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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PILLOWLAND

by Laurie Berkner ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2017

For Berkner’s fans; there are much better books about children visiting imaginative lands.

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Berkner’s children’s song gets the picture-book treatment with illustrations from Garoche.

What kid hasn’t made a massive pillow fort and imagined all sorts of adventures? Well, Berkner’s premise is that there is a land where everything is made of pillows, and three lucky children get to visit there. (They appear to be siblings, perhaps a blended family: Mom and one girl are black; Dad, one boy, and one girl are white.) The illustrations transition between depictions of obvious imaginative play in a bedroom to a fantasy world and back again at the end, when the parents peek in at the three asleep. Garoche’s art consists of photos of papercut artwork arranged in dioramas with some Photoshop details. Reminiscent of Michael Garland’s work (though more pastel in color) or that of Elly McKay (though less ethereal), the illustrations are a mixed bag, with layers and hard edges juxtaposed against all the pillows. The king and queen of the song are obviously stand-ins for the parents. Children who know the tune may not sit still for a reading, while those who don’t may wonder at the repeated refrain.

For Berkner’s fans; there are much better books about children visiting imaginative lands. (Picture book. 3-7)