A tender tale of loss and reunion, and the saving grace of a mother’s love, from Jeram (Daisy Dare, 1995, etc.). Bunny and his favorite companions, Little Duckling and Miss Mouse, play and romp under the indulgent gaze of Mommy Rabbit. When Bunny wanders off into the woods and discovers he is lost he begins to cry for his mother. “Oh, how could such a bad thing happen? Perhaps it was a game that went wrong. Perhaps Bunny ran too far on his own.” Before readers can become too alarmed, Mommy Rabbit is joyfully reunited with Bunny and he is safe in her warm embrace. Jeram addresses a common concern of toddlers in a comforting manner, while her whimsical drawings of Bunny and his friends are irresistible. A lighthearted yet compassionate tale. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0710-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name.
A brief rhyming board book for toddlers.
Spurr's earlier board books (In the Garden and At the Beach, both 2012; In the Woods, 2013) featured an adventuresome little boy. Her new slice-of-life story stars an equally joyful little girl who takes pleasure in flying a new kite while not venturing far off the walkway. Oliphant's expressive and light-filled watercolors clearly depict the child's emotions—eager excitement on the way to the park, delight at the kite's flight in the wind, shock when the kite breaks free, dejection, and finally relief and amazement. The rhymes work, though uneven syllable counts in some stanzas interrupt the smooth flow of the verse. The illustrations depict the child with her mass of windblown curls, brown skin, and pronounced facial features as African-American. Her guardian (presumably her mother) is also brown-skinned. It is refreshing to see an African-American family settled comfortably in a suburban setting with single-family homes and a park where the family dog does not need to be leashed.
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56145-854-7
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Will make readers fall in love with the city depicted within.
From a nurse to an emergency dispatcher, a look at the city dwellers whose work begins when the sun goes down.
Reading this book is like looking through a telescope—there are windows on nearly every page; some pages feature rectangular, windowlike vignettes of people at work. On the front cover, a taxi driver is visible through the side window of a cab, with a dog sitting up in the back seat. Above them, on an upper floor, a museum worker is doing some vacuuming, with dinosaur bones in the background. Many of the people can be seen only from a great distance, and the details we learn about them often come from just a few spare sentences: “The museum is closed, but the janitor and security guard are hard at work.” Downing’s blue-tinged, cozy artwork sometimes makes words almost unnecessary—in this case, the accompanying illustration says it all, a full spread showing the janitor reaching up to dust the nose of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. Most of the people who are working late seem to be smiling, and while it’s difficult to find a message in the limited text, readers will close the book feeling that there’s joy to be found in every job and every schedule. The residents of this urban environment are diverse in skin tone. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Will make readers fall in love with the city depicted within. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-8234-5206-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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