A didactic pipe dream.
Stewart tenders a piece of puff pastry that wishes nothing more than to send its readers to slumberland.
This book, with its handsome artwork but thin-as-gruel text, may find its readers snug asleep in bed, but purely unintentionally. The bald intent here is to instruct: If you sense your mother’s nearness when you wake late in the dark of night, you will feel her loving protectiveness, close your eyes and find your way back to sleep. To be kind, if your child is a committed spiritualist or a Zen adept, this may work, but most adult readers will find themselves muttering, “As if.” The mother and cub spend the day flexing the cub’s newfound abilities—jumping in the grass, climbing the rocks—and the mother, in the refrain, reminds the cub that he is doing it “all by yourself”: the unsubtle hint that he is not sleeping by himself yet, is he? These reminders give way to the mystical. “If you keep your eyes closed, and I am quieter than the smallest cricket,” asks Mommy, “then how do you know I am near?” Eventually it works for the cub, though that grassland still looks mighty dark and deep. The illustrations, however, are an eyeful: mixed-media confections that catch the smoky-purple hills and tawny grasslands where these tigers roam (though, in reality, most tigers prefer the Asian forest).
A didactic pipe dream. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7641-6587-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Watching unlikely friends finally be as “happy as two someones can be” feels like being enveloped in your very own hug.
What to do when you’re a prickly animal hankering for a hug? Why, find another misfit animal also searching for an embrace!
Sweet but “tricky to hug” little Hedgehog is down in the dumps. Wandering the forest, Hedgehog begs different animals for hugs, but each rejects them. Readers will giggle at their panicked excuses—an evasive squirrel must suddenly count its three measly acorns; a magpie begins a drawn-out song—but will also be indignant on poor hedgehog’s behalf. Hedgehog has the appealingly pink-cheeked softness typical of Dunbar’s art, and the gentle watercolors are nonthreatening, though she also captures the animals’ genuine concern about being poked. A wise owl counsels the dejected hedgehog that while the prickles may frighten some, “there’s someone for everyone.” That’s when Hedgehog spots a similarly lonely tortoise, rejected due to its “very hard” shell but perfectly matched for a spiky new friend. They race toward each other until the glorious meeting, marked with swoony peach swirls and overjoyed grins. At this point, readers flip the book to hear the same gloomy tale from the tortoise’s perspective until it again culminates in that joyous hug, a book turn that’s made a pleasure with thick creamy paper and solid binding.
Watching unlikely friends finally be as “happy as two someones can be” feels like being enveloped in your very own hug. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-571-34875-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Good bedtime reading.
Only polar bears are allowed on Polar Bear Island, until Kirby, a friendly, creative penguin, arrives on the scene.
On the verso of the first double-page spread, large white lettering proclaims against an azure sky: “Polar Bear Island was peaceful and predictable. Parker, the mayor, planned to keep it that way.” Below, Parker—paint can in left paw—can be seen facing his sign: “Welcome to Polar Bear Island. No Others Allowed.” On the recto, Kirby floats into view on an ice floe, with hat, scarf, and overstuffed suitcase. When Kirby arrives, Parker grudgingly allows her an overnight stay. However, she soon proves her worth to the other bears; she has invented Flipper Slippers, which keep extremities warm and reverse from skates to snowshoes. Now Kirby is allowed to stay and help the bears make their own Flipper Slippers. When her family shows up with more inventions, Parker feels compelled to give them a week. (Presumably, the penguins have made the 12,430-mile-trip from the South Pole to the North Pole, characterized merely as “a long journey.”) A minor crisis permanently changes Parker’s attitudes about exclusivity. The text is accessible and good fun to read aloud. The weakness of the ostensible theme of granting welcome to newcomers lies in the fact that all the newcomers are immediately, obviously useful to the bears. The cartoonlike, scratchboard-ish graphics are lighthearted and full of anthropomorphic touches.
Good bedtime reading. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2870-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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