Less than the sum of its parts, this effort to educate young listeners about aspects of Egyptian culture while simultaneously celebrating the love of a young boy for his pet never quite comes together. Austen’s text is straightforward. A sentence on the left page describes the goddess Isis’ appearance, role and history, while the right-hand page offers an observation, usually cleverly linked, about the unnamed narrator’s cat. These provide some humor but will be appreciated more by adult readers than children. For example, “Isis and Osiris had a baby who became the sky god, Horus,” is immediately followed by “We had my Isis spayed.” Sophisticated vocabulary and concepts further distance young listeners, who may be confused by the fact that Isis and Osiris are brother and sister and have little context to understand the notion that they “gave people agriculture, law and civilization.” Cleverly designed to resemble scraps of parchment, the illustrations of the goddess are effective and evocative. Cat Isis and her owner don’t fare so well, and the artwork only reinforces the failure of the text Made from a mix of photographs, paper, paintings and pen-and-ink illustrations, textures are intriguing and proportions generally correct, but the glassy eyes give the beloved cat a slightly creepy look, while the boy winds up looking unfortunately like a burn victim. An intriguing effort that misses the mark. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55453-413-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well worth a waddle.
An invitation to younger children to act like Adélie penguins.
Morales’ cartoon illustrations alternating with nature photos place a racially diverse group of young folks in cool-weather dress amid flocks of the diminutive penguins. Markle not only offers observations about penguin behavior but also urges readers to squawk, sled, waddle, take “power naps,” “fly through the ocean,” and leap away from predators right alongside them. Sidestepping the topic of reproduction requires an awkward hop. The author’s “Adélie pairs regularly gift [nesting] pebbles to each other” is misleadingly restated in the adjacent box as “When you live with penguins you will gift pebbles to your best friends.” And no grown-up is going to thank her for this cheerfully suggestive line: “Hungry Adélie chicks call nonstop until a parent finds them and feeds them.” Still, such playful suggestions are certainly child-friendly, and the series premise continues to artfully entice audiences to exercise both bodies and minds for insights into the world of nature—readers will especially enjoy the idea of tobogganing down a snowy slope like a penguin. Fans of the creators’ Could You Ever Dive With Dolphins?! (2023) will be pleased. A closing page of additional facts includes aerial images of Antarctica in summer and winter.
Well worth a waddle. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781338858792
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Superficially appealing; much less so upon closer examination.
When Rabbit’s unbridled mania for collecting carrots leaves him unable to sleep in his cozy burrow, other animals offer to put him up.
But to Rabbit, their homes are just more storage space for carrots: Tortoise’s overstuffed shell cracks open; the branch breaks beneath Bird’s nest; Squirrel’s tree trunk topples over; and Beaver’s bulging lodge collapses at the first rainstorm. Impelled by guilt and the epiphany that “carrots weren’t for collecting—they were for SHARING!” Rabbit invites his newly homeless friends into his intact, and inexplicably now-roomy, burrow for a crunchy banquet. This could be read (with some effort) as a lightly humorous fable with a happy ending, and Hudson’s depictions of carrot-strewn natural scenes, of Rabbit as a plush bunny, and of the other animals as, at worst, mildly out of sorts support that take. Still, the insistent way Rabbit keeps forcing himself on his friends and the magnitude of the successive disasters may leave even less-reflective readers disturbed. Moreover, as Rabbit is never seen actually eating a carrot, his stockpiling looks a lot like the sort of compulsive hoarding that, in humans, is regarded as a mental illness.
Superficially appealing; much less so upon closer examination. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62370-638-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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