A huge yellow parade balloon manages to slip his tether and elude his handlers. Seen partially, big grin in place, Ray’s sunny yellow roundness peeks through windows, at the edges of the frames and from behind buildings. Bright colors and cartoon illustration add to a feeling of celebration and wildly cheerful chaos as the parade is interrupted by Ray’s unexpected escape. "It was rare for a balloon like Ray, / who had been good for years, / to decide that ‘today was the day.' " Johnson's lyrically reportorial, enigmatic text offers no answers, just a slyly subversive account of the shenanigans. "That day the parade was a disaster: / clowns everywhere, / bands backed up downtown, / ... / paper flowers as far as the eye could see, / ... and Ray, / shining bright, smiling (he always did)." There’s plenty to talk about: What kind of balloon is Ray? What is going to happen? Some may wish for a back story—or to know what happens to Ray as he continues sedately skyward—but small listeners who occasionally tire of holding hands every time they go out may find Ray’s boldness thrilling and poetically liberating. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-689-87375-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Momo longed to carry the blue umbrella and wear the bright red rubber boots she had been given on her third birthday. But day after day Indian summer continued. Momo tried to tell mother she needed to carry the umbrella to nursery school because the sunshine bothered her eyes. But Mother didn't let her use the umbrella then or when she said the wind bothered her. At last, though, rain fell on the city pavements and Momo carried her umbrella and wore her red boots to school. One feels the urgency of Momo's wish. The pictures are full of the city's moods and the child's joy in a rainy day.
Pub Date: March 1, 1958
ISBN: 978-0-14-050240-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1958
Superheroes, and readers, will live happily-ever-after.
Why have fairy tales lasted so long? Maybe it’s because they change with every teller.
It takes surprisingly little effort to turn the Three Little Pigs into superheroes. The Big Bad Wolf basically started out as a supervillain, with the ability to blow a house down, and the pigs had to perform spectacular feats to outwit him. In this picture book, the wolf, locked in the Happily Never After tower, devises a plot to escape. Using rotten eggs and spicy ginger, he creates the Gingerbread Man, who makes his way to a baking contest where the three pigs and other fairy-tale characters are competing to win the key to the city. The Gingerbread Man grabs the key, and not even superhero pigs are fast enough to catch him, but with their secret weapon—mustard (which one of the pigs also uses to bake cookies)—they save the day. The morals: Evil never triumphs, and mustard cookies are delicious. The book’s charm is in the details. There are splotches of mustard on the cookies featured on the endpapers, and a sly-looking mouse is hiding on many of the pages. The story even manages to include more than a dozen fairy-tale figures without seeming frenzied. Evans’ use of shading is so skillful that it almost seems possible to reach out and touch the characters. Most of the human characters are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Superheroes, and readers, will live happily-ever-after. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-68221-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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