Three ghosts-in-training meet a family that proves difficult to scare.
Groana, Moana, and Shrieky have successfully used their ghostly tricks to haunt families in two different houses. But when their teacher, Madam Grey, assigns them a family of monsters to haunt, they must get creative with their tactics. Readers will giggle to see what ultimately frightens these Frankenstein-type monsters: bunnies, puppies, glitter, and cupcakes. Crimi’s rhyming story nicely leverages unpredictability to keep preschoolers engaged. How silly that the things they love should terrify a monster! Miller’s illustrations are age appropriate and appealing—nothing’s too spooky here—with a comic-book feel. The three ghosties are nonthreatening, with rosy cheeks and expressive eyebrows. The humans depicted are racially diverse, including one interracial family. There are also some fun details, like the monster family’s table full of rotten fish and moldy cheese. Miller cleverly uses the color palette so that the hues of the human families’ homes, with touches of pink and light blue, are the same as those of the cheerful items used to scare the monster family. Sure to be enjoyed by the preschool crowd—a great Halloween read-aloud for a classroom or library.
Not-too-spooky Halloween fun. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-3426-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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A collection of poems follows a group of elementary school students as they prepare for and celebrate Valentine’s Day.
One student starts the day by carefully choosing clothing in pink, purple, or red, while a family kicks off the morning with a breakfast of red, heart-shaped pancakes. At school, children create valentines until party time finally arrives with lots of yummy treats. The students give valentines to their school friends, of course, but we also see one child making a “special delivery” to a pet, a stuffed animal, family members, and even the crossing guard. The poems also extend the Valentine’s celebration to the community park, where other couples—some older, one that appears to be same-sex—are struck by cupid’s “magical love arrows.” Note the child running away: “Blech!” Not everyone wants to “end up in love!!!” But the spread devoted to Valentine’s jokes will please readers more interested in humor than in romance and inspire children to create their own jokes. To make the celebration complete, the last pages of the book contain stickers and a double-sided “BEE MINE!” valentine that readers can, with adult help, cut out. Cheery and kid-friendly, the poems can be read independently or from cover to cover as a full story. The cartoonish illustrations include lots of hearts and emphasize the growing Valentine’s Day excitement, depicting a diverse classroom that includes students who use wheelchairs. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Effectively captures the excitement surrounding Valentine’s Day. (Picture-book poetry. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-38717-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS
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Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS
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