While this ABC book offers sweet rhymes, the volume’s hidden letters may confuse young readers.
Illustrations of a variety of outlandish and familiar animals accompany a poem featuring letters of the alphabet.
“I love you wide. I love you / high. I love you like the / Angels fly” opens this poem that covers all 26 letters, though they are sometimes hidden inside the stanzas. Higman (Mocha Marriages, 2016, etc.), a veteran author, uses creative words to represent each letter: “Cookie-crunch,” “Heaven-tall,” and “Velvety,” among them. The rhymes here take precedence and are well-cadenced throughout, with all the ways to show love, even when you have a Fight or don’t want to eat your peas, Please. Some of the rhymes and pictures involve well-known beasts: the book pairs “I love you like a cozy rug / I love you like a big / Bear hug” with a heartwarming scene of a brown bear clasping a cub. But several of the images by debut illustrator Rogers feature animals obscure enough (quokka, ibex, uakari, Ulysses butterfly) that adults will likely find themselves doing Internet searches for photographs of the real creatures to show their young readers. Thankfully, a listing in the back offers all the letter words to be found on each page, helping to explain that bird on the N page (nightingale), and those weird mammals on the M page (meerkats). While some of the choices will elicit giggles, others are less inspiring: the word I for the I page, U in place of “you” for the U page, and merry-go-Round for R, for example. The problem with hiding the letters inside the rhyming phrases and using words like ice cream on the M page is that the youngest readers, who are most attracted to alphabet books, are likely to be confused and will not find the mnemonics they need to learn the letters. Likewise, the pictures offer little help. Executed with colored pencils in pastel colors, the cheerful illustrations focus more on the letters and less on tying into the text. Best known for her Christian genre novels for adults, Higman mentions God and heaven here in her charming poem only sparingly but enough to appeal to devout readers. The message of love may make this a fun book for sharing with lap readers who don’t find the alphabet aspect too frustrating.
While this ABC book offers sweet rhymes, the volume’s hidden letters may confuse young readers.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-944613-05-1
Page Count: 62
Publisher: Armonia Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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