Another lovely, if imperfect, book for the spring shelf
Rhymes, magic words, and gatefolds celebrate the transformations of spring.
“Sunshine warms a patch of snow. / Hocus-pocus! // Where did it go?” A mother rabbit with four kits snuggled beside her looks out at a snowy clearing; with the opening of the gatefold, the kits have woken up, the snow in front of their den has largely melted, and green shoots stipple the brown earth. In the next tableau, one of the shoots becomes a crocus watched over by a smiling mole. Pussy willows emerge, leaves appear, birds build nests and lay eggs, and fruit trees bloom. While at times O’Brien needs to stretch for her magic words and phrases (“alizebu” is quite obscure, and the negative connotations of “mumbo jumbo” are unfortunate), her rhymes and scansion never falter. Gal choreographs the progression smoothly, taking readers from early spring to the lushness of summer. The only sequential misstep is in taking the book back to early spring in the penultimate tableau with the discarding of winter boots—children who’ve seen the advancing spring phenomena in the preceding pages will have mentally stowed theirs much earlier. Gal combines charcoal and digital collage for a beautifully smudgy look, and details charm: on close inspection, a fly’s transparent wing displays a paisley pattern. The final tableau features a multiethnic group of children playing among all the “bright new things.”
Another lovely, if imperfect, book for the spring shelf . (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1891-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.
You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!
What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0534-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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