A charming tale sure to pique kids’ interest in Scotland—and tortoises.
Two tortoises make a home with humans near Loch Ness, Scotland, in this rhyming story about a decades-long relationship between a woman and her pets.
Neeps and Tattie, two tortoises, live in a bothy—a small hut—near Loch Ness with an older woman named Annie and her dogs, Angus and Tess. The story flashes back to when Annie adopted the tortoises 52 years earlier, when she was 10. Young Annie builds a small home for them in her garden and takes care of them for decades, both indoors and outdoors, where the tortoises like to play hide-and-seek with the dogs. When the weather cools, Annie brings the pair inside to hibernate in her refrigerator until spring. Johnson and Madden show the joys of long-lived pet ownership in accessible rhyming phrases. Youngsters are likely to chuckle at the refrigerator hibernation in Swartz’s full-color illustrations, which feature two tortoises withdrawn into shells on a tray labeled “Do Not Eat.” Scottish terms such as bothy and loch are explained in a glossary, but readers won’t need definitions to understand the tale. (The meanings behind the tortoises’ names, however, may elicit giggles.) Painted images capture the pastoral setting on Loch Ness and give the straightforward story a whimsical feel, hiding familiar shapes in bushes and clouds.
A charming tale sure to pique kids’ interest in Scotland—and tortoises.Pub Date: April 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781633813472
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Maine Authors Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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