Poor Ruff. Busy? Yes. Wonderfully amazing? No.
Industrious dog meets charming mouse! Angry duckling falls from sky! Friendship ensues! And isn’t it great that they’ll all be together again tomorrow and probably for more overly exclamatory sequels?
Ruff is a small, cheerful canine who lives alone in a cozy, caravan-style house in a big yard. While digging a new pond, he inadvertently destroys the home of Hubble the mouse. Ruff kindly builds Hubble a tiny shed next to his own home and offers his new pond as a home for Lottie, a duckling who couldn’t keep up with the older ducks as they migrated. Large-format illustrations are peppy and pleasing to the eye, with amusing animal characters and a collage style that incorporates patterned papers and cut-out leaves and flowers. The story unfolds in a breathless, wordy style, with too many jolly phrases and exclamation marks, and the camaraderie between the new friends feels forced rather than natural. The characters are sweet, the plot adequate if unexceptional, and the illustrations appealing. It’s the chatty, patronizing tone of the text that is the stumbling block that will make Ruff! a rough sell for repeated readings.
Poor Ruff. Busy? Yes. Wonderfully amazing? No. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-201498-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A masterful consideration of perception, exploration, and, ultimately, love.
Seeming simplicity yields rich rewards in this sensory-steeped tale of adventure and friendship.
Color-sapped outlines of a wilderness kick off this tale of a dog and cat traveling together. “Two together headed home. / Cat and dog. / Bell and Bone. / For a moment. For a day. // Two together on their way.” After they peek at their reflections in the water, different artistic styles are used in the following pages to depict each animal; the dog is rendered in curved acrylics, the cat in spiky colored pencil. Sometimes the very page splits in two, one side portraying the dog’s perceptions and the other the cat’s. After a toad waylays them, they encounter a bear, a cave, and a rainstorm. As night falls, the colors grow deep and sumptuous, and home appears like a beacon. Inside, the two are now more rendered more realistically and in more detail than ever before. That is, until they go out again to prowl the night. Featuring the singsong nature of some of the best nursery rhymes, the tale reads with an effortless lilting quality, gently rhyming. Yet it’s the art that’s the showstopper here, and one wonders if the two are crispest in the home because we’re seeing them the way their human owner does. What is unquestionable is the friends’ affection for each other, the pair sticking side by side through thick and thin.
A masterful consideration of perception, exploration, and, ultimately, love. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781797202778
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Wildly brilliant!
A funny and unique way to impart an important message.
In a rare and fresh perspective, animal children try to convince their mothers that humans are just like animals: cuddly, cute, unique, and interesting to look at. However, the animal mothers tell their young that humans are dangerous. People are loud, messy, and nosy. People are “such strange creatures.” Most importantly, animal families cannot keep people as pets because “people are wild,” and “all wild creatures should be free.” Gorgeous colored pencil and watercolor illustrations feature a diverse cast of humans as well as elephants, frogs, butterflies, and seals, among other animals. The colors are rich and vibrant, and the images will be easy to see from a distance during a read-aloud, although there are so many details, points of view, and textures in each illustration that readers will also want to spend some time up close with them. The many landscape-layout double-page spreads show off each animal’s habitat. The endpapers highlight that both animal and human children enjoy many of the same activities. Animal facts in the backmatter encourage readers to explore and research on their own. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Wildly brilliant! (endangered species map) (Informational picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-30194-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
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