Forget Brock.
Phillip and Brock are best friends. They spend all their time goofing around together. The only problem is his parents can see Phillip but not Brock.
This tale of a boy and his imaginary friend is told in one or two sentences per page, along with watercolor illustrations that depict a cheery, 1950s-feeling home. Phillip’s parents play along with their son’s imaginary friend, Brock. One evening when the family returns from the fair, disaster strikes. In a two-page spread, despair consumes Phillip’s face as he sobs, “WE FORGOT BROCK!” Back at the fair, however, Brock meets Anne, who introduces him to Princess Sparkle Dust and offers to take him home with them. Though Anne and Princess Sparkle Dust try to cheer him up, Brock misses Phillip. Eventually the pair is reunited, and when Brock introduces Phillip to his new friends, they all become best friends, though his parents can still see only the two children. Goodrich plays with perspective, sometimes including his imaginary characters, done in monochromatic lines as if by a child, in an illustration and sometimes not, for funny counterpoint. Though the illustrations are sweet, the story feels slight, and it adds little new or exciting to the imaginary-friend shelf. In addition, the stereotypical renderings of Brock as a sword-wielding, black-and-white pirate and Princess Sparkle Dust as a big-haired, purple princess are unfortunate.
Forget Brock. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8090-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though books on childhood anxiety are numerous, it is worth making space on the shelf for this one.
Brock may be dressed like a superhero, but he sure doesn’t feel like one, as social anxieties threaten to rain on his fun .
Juan’s superhero-themed birthday party is about to start, but Brock is feeling trepidatious about attending without his brother as his trusty sidekick. His costume does not fit quite right, and he is already running late, and soon Brock is “way past worried.” When he arrives at the party he takes some deep breaths but is still afraid to jump in and so hides behind a tree. Hiding in the same tree is the similarly nervous Nelly, who’s new to the neighborhood. Through the simple act of sharing their anxieties, the children find themselves ready to face their fears. This true-to-life depiction of social anxiety is simply but effectively rendered. While both Nelly and Brock try taking deep breathes to calm their anxieties without success, it is the act of sharing their worries in a safe space with someone who understands that ultimately brings relief. With similar themes, Brock’s tale would make a lovely companion for Tom Percival’s Ruby Finds a Worry (2019) on social-emotional–development bookshelves. Brock is depicted with black hair and tan skin, Nelly presents White, and peers at the party appear fairly diverse.
Though books on childhood anxiety are numerous, it is worth making space on the shelf for this one. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8075-8686-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
Low grade.
A gray character tries to write an all-gray book.
The six primary and secondary colors are building a rainbow, each contributing the hue of their own body, and Gray feels forlorn and left out because rainbows contain no gray. So Gray—who, like the other characters, has a solid, triangular body, a doodle-style face, and stick limbs—sets off alone to create “the GRAYest book ever.” His book inside a book shows a peaceful gray cliff house near a gray sea with gentle whitecaps; his three gray characters—hippo, wolf, kitten—wait for their arc to begin. But then the primaries arrive and call the gray scene “dismal, bleak, and gloomy.” The secondaries show up too, and soon everyone’s overrunning Gray’s creation. When Gray refuses to let White and Black participate, astute readers will note the flaw: White and black (the colors) had already been included in the early all-gray spreads. Ironically, Gray’s book within a book displays calm, passable art while the metabook’s unsubtle illustrations and sloppy design make for cramped and crowded pages that are too busy to hold visual focus. The speech-bubble dialogue’s snappy enough (Blue calls people “dude,” and there are puns). A convoluted moral muddles the core artistic question—whether a whole book can be gray—and instead highlights a trite message about working together.
Low grade. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-4340-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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