Pleasingly reflective of familiar childhood inner and outer wanderings, this picture book encourages little readers’ feet...
A little panda's feet, snug in yellow moon boots, turn everyday walks into extraordinary adventures.
They tread through the "thick jungle" (a vegetable garden), up "tall mountains" (a green knoll), over a "creaking bridge"(a log), and even into "the ocean" (a rain puddle). And that's just the morning! In the afternoon, those feet sit "very, very quietly" while the panda feeds "little dinosaurs" (bobbing birds). The ingenious incongruity between these imagined assertions and the realities keenly illustrated on these pages will delight children, who are intimately privy to the all-consuming power of pretend play. These uncluttered illustrations, in wintry purples, blues, greens, and browns, stretch across the length of two pages, suggesting an elasticized, unhurried narrative spun out of a young mind. Pencil drawings, made fuzzy and haloed by digital coloring, appear both specific and gauzy—an ambivalence that works in a story about unspooling imagination. The young narrator reads as a bit ambiguous, its long, string-bean body looking little like a roly-poly panda. Though the panda is gendered male in flap copy, the text is entirely in the first person, so the protagonist can be interpreted flexibly. The day described, however, with its swing rides, sandbox castles, bath-time splashes, and bedtime books, greatly resembles many children’s quotidian pleasures.
Pleasingly reflective of familiar childhood inner and outer wanderings, this picture book encourages little readers’ feet and minds to run on and on. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-51164-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together.
A clueless duckling tries to make a new friend.
He is confused by this peculiar-looking duck, who has a long tail, doesn’t waddle and likes to be alone. No matter how explicitly the creature denies he is a duck and announces that he is a cat, the duckling refuses to acknowledge the facts. When this creature expresses complete lack of interest in playing puddle stomp, the little ducking goes off and plays on his own. But the cat is not without remorse for rejecting an offered friendship. Of course it all ends happily, with the two new friends enjoying each other’s company. Bramsen employs brief sentences and the simplest of rhymes to tell this slight tale. The two heroes are meticulously drawn with endearing, expressive faces and body language, and their feathers and fur appear textured and touchable. Even the detailed tree bark and grass seem three-dimensional. There are single- and double-page spreads, panels surrounded by white space and circular and oval frames, all in a variety of eye-pleasing juxtapositions. While the initial appeal is solidly visual, young readers will get the gentle message that friendship is not something to take for granted but is to be embraced with open arms—or paws and webbed feet.
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-86990-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
So sweet it’ll have readers heading for their toothbrushes.
Another entry in the how-much-I-love-you genre.
The opening spread shows a blue elephant-and-child pair, the child atop the adult, white hearts arcing between their uplifted trunks: “You’re a gift and a blessing in every way. / I love you more each and every day.” From there, the adult elephant goes on to tell the child how they are loved more than all sorts of things, some rhyming better than others: “I love you more than all the spaghetti served in Rome, // and more than each and every dog loves her bone.” More than stars, fireflies, “all the languages spoken in the world,” “all the dancers that have ever twirled,” all the kisses ever given and miles ever driven, “all the adventures you have ahead,” and “all the peanut butter and jelly spread on bread!” Representative of all the world’s languages are “I love you” in several languages (with no pronunciation help): English, Sioux, French, German, Swahili, Spanish, Hawaiian, Chinese, and Arabic (these two last in Roman characters only). Bold colors and simple illustrations with no distracting details keep readers’ focus on the main ideas. Dashed lines give the artwork (and at least one word on every spread) the look of 2-D sewn toys.
So sweet it’ll have readers heading for their toothbrushes. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8398-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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