A little boy visits the zoo for the first time and is enthralled by all its wonders.
Joined by his parents and sister, Lucy, the boy relates each part of the day, from buying tickets to studying the zoo map and the slightly alarming animal sounds he hears in the near distance. But as they wind their way through the park, visiting the Jungle House to see the monkeys, the Gorilla Forest, the African Plain and its elephants, the lions inside the Grasslands building, the Reptile House, and polar bears and sea lions, the new experience of seeing the animals and their behaviors up close fascinates this youngster. The initial trepidation the boy felt at the beginning of his day gives way to sheer delight in the Bird House, where the birds fly freely and a parrot lands on his shoulder for a sip of nectar. A picnic lunch and a couple of balloons for souvenirs complete the perfect Saturday outing for this brown-skinned family of four. Detailed watercolors rendered in soft hues fluently complement the boy’s first-person narrative and give readers a firsthand view of the zoo’s residents.
Following on Library Day (2016), this is a lovely addition to the creators’ series on first experiences. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2734-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING
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BOOK REVIEW
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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