This one serves as a gentle introduction to the concepts of day, night and the four seasons while celebrating and cementing...
A simple, joyful expression of love at all hours and through all seasons.
In short, rhyming verses, a doting parent professes love for his or her toddler all through the day and night: “I love you in the morning at the start of every day. // I love you in the evening when sunshine goes away. // I love you when the stars glow in the dim moonlight. // I love you in the silence that comes with every night.” In the verses that follow, the narrator continues in this vein, describing his or her love for the child in spring, summer, winter and fall, ending with: “Let’s watch the world together, in rain, or snow, or shine. // I love you always and forever, sweet child of mine.” The endearing, cartoon-style illustrations feature a blond, curly-haired Caucasian girl and her stuffed bunny sidekick in appealing yet uncluttered natural scenes, with the narrator/parent never pictured. Both the text—with brief lines that scan well and read smoothly—and the illustrations are well-suited to the toddler crowd.
This one serves as a gentle introduction to the concepts of day, night and the four seasons while celebrating and cementing the parent/child bond—if only it were more ethnically inclusive. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-64771-7
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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