Dazzling.
What if you could dream yourself into another animal?
A bright eye peeks from under a tree. Orange-on-blue shapes, first seen on the front endpapers, become a salamander’s patterned skin. An unseen narrator begins, “I had a dream I was a sleeping salamander… // until you came…and woke me from that dream.” The salamander becomes an octopus: “Bursts of wonder tingling down the minds of my arms /…until you came…and woke me from that dream.” Octopus becomes elephant becomes falcon becomes tiger. Wenzel’s creatures are full of personality and spirited energy—they telegraph their natures: secretive, undulating, fearsome, massive, tiny. Light and shadow, camouflage and plumage, bright colors and bold lines pop from the pages, the illustrations combining with the spare text to create a melodic pacing. The dreamer becomes other animals in an accelerating montage: “Then there I was. / And was, / and was / and was again.” Finally, there is a tan-skinned child “full of funny thoughts and comfort and family.” Here a snowy day of play gives way to striped pajamas, a warm blanket, and a dream. Caldecott winner Wenzel cultivates senses of empathy and imagination in this appreciation of the ways other creatures experience the world, resulting in a buoyantly reverent celebration of the myriad wonders and complexity of life on Earth. The simple poetry of the narrative creates a glorious conversation starter: Who is the dreamer? (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Dazzling. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316512534
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
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
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
