There are so many shape-recognition books that are so much better; this one should remain tangled.
Two- and three-dimensional shapes must problem-solve when several get stuck while at the playground.
“One day a little circle, just as happy as could be / got caught inside the jungle gym, and couldn’t wiggle free.” Several friends try to help her, either ineffectually or, worse, getting stuck themselves. As crowds gather, a line arrives, and she devises the perfect plan. With the help of a prism and a sphere, she sets up a lever and pops the shapes free. Miranda’s rhyming verses sometimes stumble. Comstock’s shape characters, with noodlelike arms and legs, mostly sport similar expressions of dismay or happiness. His depictions of the jungle gym fail to make it clear how the shapes are trapped; they look as though they could just slip out. Only two shapes are specifically gendered female in the text. Both are pink (at least one other pink shape is explicitly male); one has a bow atop her head, the other, who wears glasses, has eyelashes. The mix of 2- and 3-D shapes makes the audience tough to pin down. Some shapes will be mystifying to children still sorting them out: The word “ellipse” is used instead of “oval,” and in a scene where crowds gather, the text refers to “points” joining the throng; readers may not know what they are till they reach the ending shape gallery, which shows points as a group of dots.
There are so many shape-recognition books that are so much better; this one should remain tangled. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9721-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated.
Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault’s classic alphabet book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets the Halloween treatment.
Chung follows the original formula to the letter. In alphabetical order, each letter climbs to the top of a tree. They are knocked back to the ground in a jumble before climbing up in sequence again. In homage to the spooky holiday theme, they scale a “creaky old tree,” and a ghostly jump scare causes the pileup. The chunky, colorful art is instantly recognizable. The charmingly costumed letters (“H swings a tail. / I wears a patch. J and K don / bows that don’t match”) are set against a dark backdrop, framed by pages with orange or purple borders. The spreads feature spiderwebs and jack-o’-lanterns. The familiar rhyme cadence is marred by the occasional clunky or awkward phrase; in particular, the adapted refrain of “Chicka chicka tricka treat” offers tongue-twisting fun, but it’s repeatedly followed by the disappointing half-rhyme “Everybody sneaka sneak.” Even this odd construction feels shoehorned into place, since “sneaking” makes little sense when every character in the book is climbing together. The final line of the book ends on a more satisfying note, with “Everybody—time to eat!”
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781665954785
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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