Delightfully different illustrations in a naïf style are the glowing heart of this cheerful story of a little girl’s preparations for Christmas. Bogacki’s characters have the look of big, floppy rag dolls, and his flattened perspective, simple shapes and scratched details with the look of finger-painting add to the childlike appeal of his paintings. The cover shows the main character, Anna, reaching out for her baby brother, who is popping out of a package under the Christmas tree. This foreshadows the volume’s conclusion: that the new baby is the family’s best Christmas gift. In the story’s first-person narration, Anna tells her baby brother all about the holiday, using a repetitive structure that underscores the anticipatory nature of the season. She describes the stages of getting ready and each activity to her brother, explaining all their family traditions such as making cards and presents, choosing a tree, baking cookies and welcoming the grandparents. The linear timeline will, of course, help younger children listening to the story to understand the progression of the season, as well as provide a starting point for discussions of their own family Christmas traditions. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-57505-934-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The words to a Christmas song from the 1950s serve as the text for this exploration of a most unusual Christmas gift. An unnamed little girl in pink pajamas is the first-person narrator, explaining in detail why she wants a hippopotamus as her present. Various views of the hippo are shown in a slightly confusing, nonlinear time sequence, but then why would time proceed in a straightforward fashion with a hippo in the house? Santa is shown pushing the hippo through the door, and the following pages show the little girl caring for her hippo, unwrapping it as a Christmas package (a different packaging treatment is shown on the cover), and then flying off with Santa as the hippo pulls the sleigh. Though the little girl and the words to the song are rather ordinary, the lively, lavender hippo in Whatley’s illustrations is a delightful creature, with a big, pink bow on its head and expressive, bulging eyes. (In fact, that hippo deserves a name and a story of its own.) The music and song lyrics are included in the final spread. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-052942-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2005
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