Children who know the nursery rhymes will enjoy seeing them in a new context, and children who do not can enjoy the...
A follow-up to If the Shoe Fits (illustrated by Karla Firehammer, 2001) finds the old woman—not so old but cheery and buxom—and her many children solving a few dilemmas for other nursery rhyme denizens.
The footwear that is their home is quite a fancy shoe, with a lamp affixed to the end of its curled tip. The opening spread sets up the entire story with its panoramic view of shoe, tree with “cradle and all,” fields, town, castle and hill with well atop. The wind rocks the cradle so wildly that the wee tot is tumbled out onto the shoe, to be gently caught by the children, who try right away to put baby and cradle back. The tree from which it fell is now festooned with mittens, and the children soon find the desolate, mittenless kittens. As they go along, they find Mary’s lamb, Bo Peep’s crook, Jack’s candlestick, and Jack and Jill’s pail (among other items) and eventually restore them to their rightful places. It is all told in verse rhymed with grace—verve, even—and illustrated with soft, ballooning figures. The many children of the shoe have round heads and button features, and each is clad in the garb of various and sundry nations and ethnicities. Perspectives swoop and change with the rhythm. There is a moral about “examin[ing] the cost / Of constantly grasping for things that are lost,” but it doesn’t much get in the way.
Children who know the nursery rhymes will enjoy seeing them in a new context, and children who do not can enjoy the rollicking action anyway. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8688-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children...
A fizzy yet revealing romp through the toy world.
Though of standard picture-book size, Stein and illustrator Staake’s latest collaboration (Bugs Galore, 2012, etc.) presents a sweeping compendium of diversions for the young. From fairies and gnomes, race cars and jacks, tin cans and socks, to pots ’n’ pans and a cardboard box, Stein combs the toy kingdom for equally thrilling sources of fun. These light, tightly rhymed quatrains focus nicely on the functions characterizing various objects, such as “Floaty, bubbly, / while-you-wash toys” or “Sharing-secrets- / with-tin-cans toys,” rather than flatly stating their names. Such ambiguity at once offers Staake free artistic rein to depict copious items capable of performing those tasks and provides pre-readers ample freedom to draw from the experiences of their own toy chests as they scan Staake’s vibrant spreads brimming with chunky, digitally rendered objects and children at play. The sense of community and sharing suggested by most of the spreads contributes well to Stein’s ultimate theme, which he frames by asking: “But which toy is / the best toy ever? / The one most fun? / Most cool and clever?” Faced with three concluding pages filled with all sorts of indoor and outside toys to choose from, youngsters may be shocked to learn, on turning to the final spread, that the greatest one of all—“a toy SENSATION!”—proves to be “[y]our very own / imagination.”
Clever verse coupled with bold primary-colored images is sure to attract and hone the attention of fun-seeking children everywhere. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6254-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)
Can there be too much glue? Matty’s about to find out.
Matty’s art teacher warns him that too much glue will never dry, but Matty (and his dad) loves glue; they play with it constantly. So Matty finds the “fullest” bottle in the art room and squirts it all over his project. Then he flops down in the middle of the mess…and gets stuck. He’s “a blucky stucky mess!” His friends try to lasso him with yarn and haul him out, but the yarn breaks and gets stuck; now, he’s “a clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess.” A Lego tow truck snaps apart in another rescue attempt, making him a “click-brick, clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess!” When the bell rings, the glue’s dry, and dad must peel gluey Matty off the table. At home, he’s divested of his glue suit, and Dad puts a magnet on it and sticks it to the fridge. After dinner, the family explores the fun of duct tape. Despite the busy plot and superabundance of exclamation marks, Lefebvre’s debut never rises to the level of mayhem or fun it aspires to. The cumulative portion of the tale loses rhyme, rhythm and logic six pages before it ends. Retz’s Photoshop paintings are bright, wide-eyed and goofy, but they can’t add enough fun to compensate for the lackluster text.
Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-9362612-7-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flashlight Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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