A cozy, briefly told wish-fulfillment tale, lit up by pictures whose clear colors and solid-looking figures are easy on the...
Plot plays a minor role at best in this brightly illustrated tale of three cute, stubby-limbed dinos getting a taste of flight.
Scratch, Sniff and Lofty—respectively a tyrannosaur, a ceratopsid and a brachiosaur—lumber energetically about their airy, open landscape, waving big leaves and even jumping off the top of a volcano in fruitless efforts to fly. Discouraged, they’re about to give up when along comes Terry Dactyl to offer them a ride on his back. “We really are flying!” they cry, before being dropped off atop Mrs. Brachiosaurus’ head and sliding down her back (“Whee!”) to the ground. The three prehistoric preschoolers proceed to sit down with slices of pinecone pie to watch Terry and his buddies swoop and soar as the sun sinks, and then it’s off to bed and further airborne dreams. Only carping critics will wonder how the playmates had missed spotting the Pterosaurs before.
A cozy, briefly told wish-fulfillment tale, lit up by pictures whose clear colors and solid-looking figures are easy on the eyes. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-1402796456
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
A story warm in both palette and feeling.
A depiction of deliberate acts of kindness.
Stead’s return to familiar themes of friendship and camaraderie is refreshed by the introduction of Samson, a wooly mammoth who loves his patch of dandelions but isn’t miserly with them. When a red bird (reminiscent of the title character in Stead’s Hello, My Name Is Ruby, 2013, in size if not color) requests some to give to a friend having a bad day, he gives them gladly. But as the bird flies away, Samson wistfully wonders what it’d be like to have a friend. He falls asleep and dreams of yellow, and here Stead treats readers to the first of three wordless spreads punctuating the narrative—this one a saturated, bright yellow with starburst prints of dandelion blossoms. Samson awakens to a blizzard, worries about the red bird, and goes off to find her. “It is better to walk than to worry,” he thinks as he trudges through the snow. He finds a mouse and lifts him up onto his furry back to stay warm and snug. The mouse, too, is searching for someone, who turns out to be the small red bird. Their reunion is a joyful one, complete with a gift of dandelions to the mouse, and then Samson brings them to a cave’s dry safety to wait out the storm, together.
A story warm in both palette and feeling. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62672-182-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Time for a scrub? It’s all in the marketing.
Two reluctant ducklings follow the lead of their humongous green sib to discover that bathtime is fun.
Shifting format, the species-diverse family introduced in picture books Duck, Duck, Dinosaur (2016) and Duck, Duck, Dinosaur and the Noise at Night (2017) faces a new challenge when Mama duck announces “Time for a bath.” Although they sport gooey splatters after playing in the mud, yellow ducklings Feather and Flap hang back—“Baths are not fun.” “No bath. No bath”—but scaly theropod Spike leaps exuberantly into the pond: “BATH!” Mama’s mentions of “soap” and “scrubbing” get similar responses from all three…but then Spike’s “BUBBLES!” makes all hesitation vanish, and in no time the three hatchlings are bright, clean, and splashing about happily. Vidal’s mud looks a lot like melted chocolate in the elementally simple illustrations so that at times the little ducklings resemble partially dipped marshmallow peeps, but the contrast between the delicate features of the small yellow birds and their towering brother’s huge, blunt nose and feet is comic gold.
Time for a scrub? It’s all in the marketing. (Early reader. 3-5)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-235312-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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