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ANIMALS FROM ANOTHER PLANET

Name: ANIMALS FROM ANOTHER PLANET
Author: Annie Cwyk
ISBN: 978-1-4835-8411-9

by Annie Cwyk ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 7, 2016

Purposeful, occasionally touching messages in an uneven mix of simplistic and sophisticated content.

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In this picture book, an elk travels to a planet where all the animals live in harmony.

When a spaceship lands in a snowy forest, Misty the elk meets five travelers: a kangaroo, a tiger, a woodchuck, a deer, and a swan. Researchers from the planet Plumvubba, they wish to see prehistoric cave paintings. They tell Misty that all artistic endeavors, from painting and photography to “quilting and pottery,” are important to them. Misty accompanies them to their planet and discerns how the arts are intertwined in the inhabitants’ harmonious coexistence. She joins in music making, learning that “we…stay in tune with one another.” And she discovers that respect for others’ opinions can lead to “peace in the world.” When Misty returns home, she shares these observations with her friends. Cwyk (Quest Across Eons, 2018) illustrates the story’s earnest messages with her own untutored, appealing colored pencil drawings. But the intended audience is unclear. The text is sometimes too juvenile for older kids (the spaceship goes “Zoogle-thrumble-Zoogle-thrumble”) and too adult for young children (there are references to Wordsworth and Pablo Neruda). Yet the tale is also threaded with unexpectedly moving moments: A newspaper with an alarming headline “swirled up onto the wind suddenly, and twirled away, far into the sky.”

Purposeful, occasionally touching messages in an uneven mix of simplistic and sophisticated content.

Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4835-8411-9

Page Count: 50

Publisher: BookBaby

Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S SPRINGTIME

From the Little Blue Truck series

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 2, 2018

Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.

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Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.

This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.

Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)