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THE PLAN

Name: THE PLAN
Author: Alison Paul
ISBN: 978-0-544-28333-6

by Alison Paul ; illustrated by Barbara Lehman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 3, 2015

Warmhearted and joyful.

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A child’s desire to fly to space turns into a transformative project with her father.

On the title page a girl sits by a mailbox at the edge of a farm, chin resting in hands, a dog by her side. An old biplane by the chicken coop is partly covered in vines. Lehman’s illustrations, outlined in pen and colored with watercolor and gouache, have a simple, graphic-novel feel. A Curtis Jenny stamp, a fragment of an encyclopedia, and the girl’s drawings tell the story of her plan: to fly to Saturn. The story is nearly wordless, with a single changing word appearing in bold text on some pages: plan becomes plane, then plane becomes planet as the girl demonstrates to her dog, with toys, how they might travel. She finds a key that is Pa’s—and a look through a photo album becomes a discovery of a barnstorming poster in the attic: past. The 20 words help to ground the story as it unfolds, telling why the plane sits in the weeds, who flew it before, how it will get back into the air. They offer listeners and beginning readers a way to understand and participate in the narrative arc. Finally, girl, father, and dog come round to “plan” again—accomplished at last as they fly home from a picnic under a starry sky.

Warmhearted and joyful. (Picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-544-28333-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HMH Books

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
SUNDAY LOVE
by Alison Paul and illustrated by Alison Paul

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CROW
by Alison Paul & illustrated by Alison Paul

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?
edited by Eric Carle

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WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BUG?
edited by Eric Carle

- BOOK REVIEW
MY FIRST I SEE YOU
by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)