While staying overnight at Grandpa's, young Marie is scared once the lights are out: ``Mom and Dad are far away, in the bedroom down the hall.'' She is nervous on the fold-out couch in the living room. Grandpa hears her, and provides a flashlight. Marie experiments. She flicks it on and off, comparing the spotlight to the light of day. She finds that moths love her light, and feels she can protect her sleeping sister from the darkness and the unknown. Her confidence grows till she declares herself queen of the night world, but her fears return, and she must call Grandpa one more time before she whispers, ``Don't be scared, Tibby. I've got a flashlight.'' It is a very familiar scenario, although James (Mary Ann, 1994, etc.) adequately captures the different moods and deliberations of Marie as her self-confidence grows. Schuett has an impossible task: capturing on a static page the flickering of the flashlight and the looming shadows in the room. One inspired spread shows ``whining midges, bumbling June bugs'' clinging to a screen, but many scenes repeat Marie's wide-eyed fear and illumination of homely corners of the apartment. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-87970-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
Pedestrian.
Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.
Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
In the siblings' latest adventure, their grandmother is having a birthday (again! see Bunny Cakes, p. 67), so Ruby takes Max shopping. A music box with skating ballerinas is Ruby's idea of the perfect present; Max favors a set of plastic vampire teeth. Ruby's $15 goes fast, and somehow, most of it is spent on Max. The music box of Ruby's dreams costs $100, so she settles for musical earrings instead. There isn't even a dollar left for the bus, so Max digs out his lucky quarter and phones Grandma, who drives them home—happily wearing her new earrings and vampire teeth. As ever, Wells's sympathies are with the underdog: Max, in one-word sentences, out-maneuvers his officious sister once again. Most six- year-olds will be able to do the mental subtraction necessary to keep track of Ruby's money, and Wells helps by illustrating the wallet and its dwindling contents at the bottom of each page where a transaction occurs. Younger children may need to follow the author's suggestion and have an adult photocopy the ``bunny money'' on the endpapers, so they can count it out. Either way, the book is a great adjunct to primary-grade math lessons. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-8037-2146-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1997
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