Sweet, sisterly sounds in a cacophonous day.
Swish, a young mouse with big ears (even for a mouse), hears all kinds of noises throughout her day—many produced by her little sister, Squeak.
With such cute (and satisfyingly sonorous) names, it isn’t surprising that these mouselings charm with their bright eyes, triangular faces, pink ears, and little bulb noses. Ballet pinks, dusty-rose reds, fantastic fuchsias, teal blues, and plum purples establish a decidedly soft palette that makes for a cozy read. While curled up with these dear pictures, readers will enjoy enunciating and articulating the myriad sounds Swish encounters during her day: “Ring RING Ring,” “eeeek,” “munch munch,” “Lalalalalalala.” Integrated into the illustrations, the onomatopoeic sounds’ varied capitalization, elongation, repetition, color, and placement allow them to trill above the page in just the right pitch. Siblings will empathize with Swish when she mistakes her sister’s chewing for an alligator’s chomping, her footfall for an elephant’s thundering steps—and also when little Squeak calls out, “I’m here, Swish,” from across a crowded playground. Or whispers, “I’m scared,” in the dark.
Sweet, sisterly sounds in a cacophonous day. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-55622-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Too many bugs, figuratively.
Lucy, “the youngest member of a family of fireflies,” must overcome an irrational, moon-induced anxiety in order to leave her family tree trunk and glow.
The first six pages pull readers into a lush, beautiful world of nighttime: “When the sun has set, silence falls over the Big Forest, and all of the nighttime animals wake up.” Mixed media provide an enchanting forest background, with stylized flora and fauna eventually illuminated by a large, benign moon, because the night “doesn’t like to catch them by surprise.” Turning the page catches readers by surprise, though: the family of fireflies is decidedly comical and silly-looking. Similarly, the text moves from a lulling, magical cadence to a distinct shift in mood as the bugs ready themselves for their foray into the night: “They wave their bottoms in the air, wiggle their feelers, take a deep, deep breath, and sing, ‘Here we go, it’s time to glow!’ ” It’s an acceptable change, but more unevenness follows. Lucy’s excitement about finally joining the other bugs turns to “sobbing” two nights in a row. Instead of directly linking her behavior to understandable reactions of children to newness, the text undermines itself by making Lucy’s parents’ sweet reassurances impotent and using the grandmother’s scientific explanation of moonlight as an unnecessary metaphor. Further detracting from the story, the text becomes ever denser and more complex over the book’s short span.
Too many bugs, figuratively. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-84-16147-00-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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