This will resonate with parents who are in denial about their progeny’s consistently disruptive behavior.
A little boy who disrupts the play of two girls and their pet cat finds redemption but no real consequences.
The opening verso sports a wavy line of stylized lettering: “Ella, Maddy, and Marmalade were best friends.” On the recto, the cartoonlike girls and orange cat, all with eyes closed in contentment, trot across a bare white background, nicely inviting readers to turn the page. At the turn, the girls are building a playhouse as “Toby, the boy from across the road, joined in.” Children will enjoy this understatement as they view the resultant havoc. Although Toby shows no malice, he also shows little remorse as he thrice destroys the collaborative sandbox creations of Maddy and Ella. With maddeningly stereotypical gender norms, the girls show both restraint and passive-aggressiveness in reaction to Toby’s behavior. All three children are wide-eyed, pen-and-ink moppets, with the girls in dresses and Toby wearing a superhero’s cape. Marmalade is a cutesy, large-headed cat who infuriates the girls by taking a fancy to Toby. When Toby frightens Marmalade up a tree, his cape then provides a means of rescue, and the next day, all three children and the cat play together happily. The artwork and layout are reminiscent of a mid-1970s aesthetic, an odd environment for a theme that seems to value individualistic, destructive behavior over collaborative, creative play.
This will resonate with parents who are in denial about their progeny’s consistently disruptive behavior. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2046-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A funny David-versus-Goliath story with a one-word question serving as the slingshot. (Picture book. 3-5)
Doctor X-Ray, a megalomaniac with an X-ray blaster and an indestructible battle suit, crashes through the ceiling of the local mall.
Innocent patrons scatter to safety. But one curious child gazes directly at the bully and asks: “Why?” At first, Doctor X-Ray answers with all the menace and swagger of a supervillain. The curious child, armed with only a stuffed bear and clad in a bright red dress, is not satisfied with the answers and continues asking: “Why?” As his pale cheeks flush with emotion, Doctor X-Ray peels back the onion of his interior life, unearthing powerful reasons behind his pursuit of tyranny. This all sounds heavy, but the humorously monotonous questions coupled with free-wheeling illustrations by Keane set a quick pace with comical results. At 60 pages, the book has room to follow this thread back to the diabolical bully’s childhood. Most of the answers go beyond a child’s understanding—parental entertainment between the howl of the monosyllabic chorus. It is the digital artwork, which is reminiscent of Quentin Blake’s, that creates a joyful undercurrent of rebellion with bold and loose brush strokes, patches of color, and expressive faces. The illustrations harken to a previous era save for the thoroughly liberated Asian child speaking truth to power.
A funny David-versus-Goliath story with a one-word question serving as the slingshot. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6863-0
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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