Three different settings for a child’s morning are covered in this book from Whitman (The Night Is Like an Animal, 1995, etc.). “The sun is coming up. It’s a brand-new day on the farm,” where children awaken to the rooster’s crow and begin their chores—gathering eggs, feeding animals. In the town, “way down the road,” parents wake by an alarm clock, and children rush to get ready for the school bus. In the city, a babysitter arrives to take over as the mother heads for work; the child then goes to the park. Readers are asked, “What do you do in the morning?” Diverse family configurations are shown in watercolor paintings; these were created, it appears, through a wet-on-wet technique that makes the boundaries of objects indistinct, as if they are glimpsed through gauze. The luminous scenes make the author’s point: there are many ways to start the day, no matter where morning arrives. (Picture book. 2-4)
Pub Date: April 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-35527-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
This color-concept book from newcomer Asbury has much going for it. The spare text (``I am Bonnie and this is my cat, Bluebonnet'') and the two-color illustrations (black and blue on a bed of white) are simple, direct, and oddly comforting. Bonnie recounts a day in her life: She introduces readers to her home, cavorts with her pals in a tree fort and swimming pool, sups, watches TV, reads her dad a bedtime story. For the most part, Asbury has chosen the vehicles for his color with a nod toward familiarity—blue water, blueberry pie, blue eyes (small, ghoulish buttons)—and sometimes with real invention: the flicker of the cathode ray, the glow of moonlight. The blue tree, on the other hand, is discordant. Two companion volumes, Rusty's Red Vacation (ISBN 0-8050-4021-8) and Yolanda's Yellow School (- 4023-4), take Asbury's color message aptly into those realms. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-8050-4022-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
The perennially popular lift-the-flap format combines with the equally well-received invitation to make animal noises in this pleasing romp through a variety of regions and biomes. An African child on the riverbank asks, “Who can snap?” Lift the flap in the reeds for the answer: “I’m a crocodile. I can!” A duck in a farm pond, a panda in a bamboo grove, a wolf on the tundra and a parrot in an Asian jungle follow in succession, all leading to a final spread that unites all the children: “And we all can sing!” Mockford’s illustrations employ baby-friendly bold, black outlines and vibrant colors. A companion volume, Walk with Me (ISBN: 978-1-84686-179-6), explores animal locomotion. (6-24 mos.)
Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-84686-180-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
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