Creating illustrations with paintings on butternut wood, its delicate grain providing texture and its artfully roughened edges a weathered, rustic look, the artists use jewel-bright blues and rich earth tones to depict the shepherds following the star and the baby they find in the stable. Each of the tender, beautifully designed scenes would make a perfect Christmas card; here, accompanied by a spare, primer-simple text (``In the warm, dark stable there was a lamb. There was a cow, too, and piles of crisp, yellow hay''), they make a lovely introduction to the story, to be extended at will—the only explicitly religious note is a prefatory quote (``And the Word became flesh...''—John 1:14). (Picture book. 2-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-670-83026-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lighthearted and un-scary enough for bedtime.
Talk show host Fallon and illustrator Deas follow up 5 More Sleeps ’Til Christmas (2020) with a story of a youngster preparing for Halloween.
“It’s FIVE more sleeps ’til Halloween, / that spooky time of year / where all the ghosts are wide awake / as nighttime’s drawing near.” A calendar page with a large numeral 5 curls before a bright orange pumpkin. An orange-haired, light-skinned moppet wearing an enormous pair of blue glasses is hunkered down in bed with Gary the dog, whose vibrant blue coloring matches the bedspread. Occasionally accompanied by a sibling, the young narrator counts down day by day, describing seasonal activities: picking out a costume, navigating a corn maze, watching scary movies, taking part in a parade, going on a hayride, and trick-or-treating. The rhyming verses are sometimes a bit rocky but always fun. The text is periodically punctuated by the word boo, which appears in large, cartoonlike lettering; that, along with the calendar countdown motif, adds a pleasant repetition. Though the child confides feelings of trepidation (“What if bats fly in my room? / I think I’ll close my window now”), descriptions of scary moments are always offset by brightly colored, exuberant artwork. Humor abounds: Gary looks both hilarious and sweet dressed in a ghost costume that matches the narrator’s. The final page neatly closes the circle as the child goes from anticipating the holiday to participating in it and back again.
Lighthearted and un-scary enough for bedtime. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781250857798
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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