A robo-pleaser.
In this English-language debut, intricate cut-paper silhouettes illustrate a one-armed robot’s search for its missing limb.
Looking rather like a windup R2-D2, the robot poses in a series of clockwork-adorned settings while rejecting each of the alternative members offered by its small, Roomba-shaped companion. No, a fork won’t do, nor an umbrella or a tree branch, nor a lollipop, a screwdriver, or a picture in a book. Where is that arm? Takeuchi tucks the two diminutive searchers into a cutaway house, an amusement park, an aquarium crowded with X-ray fish, a bustling robot-assembly plant, and other locales, all depicted in silhouette and composed dominantly of straight lines enlivened with subtle curves and populated by robots of notably diverse shape and size. The casually phrased narrative (at a candy shop: “Shall we look in here? Sweet!”; at the aquarium: “How about this fish bone? No way!”) contrasts amusingly with the art’s geometric spirit and ends with a resigned “Maybe a fork is not such a bad arm after all.” Young readers will of course be looking for the errant appendage throughout, but the author (tricksily, considering the title) reveals it only on the final page, in the robo-dog’s dish.
A robo-pleaser. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: July 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-91903-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Laugh-out-loud fun for all.
Hilarious complications ensue when Nanette’s mom gives her the responsibility of buying the family baguette.
She sets out on her errand and encounters lots of distractions along the way as she meets and greets Georgette, Suzette, Bret with his clarinet, Mr. Barnett and his pet, Antoinette. But she remembers her mission and buys the baguette from Juliette the baker. And oh, it is a wonderful large, warm, aromatic hunk of bread, so Nanette takes a taste and another and more—until there is nothing left. Maybe she needs to take a jet to Tibet. But she faces her mother and finds understanding, tenderness, and a surprise twist. Willems is at his outlandish best with line after line of “ettes” and their absurd rhymes, all the while demonstrating a deep knowledge of children’s thought processes. Nanette and the entire cast of characters are bright green frogs with very large round eyes, heavily outlined in black and clad in eccentric clothing and hats. A highly detailed village constructed of cardboard forms the background for Nanette’s adventures. Her every emotion explodes all over the pages in wildly expressive, colorful vignettes and an eye-popping use of emphatic display type. The endpapers follow the fate of the baguette from fresh and whole to chewed and gone. Demands for encores will surely follow.
Laugh-out-loud fun for all. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2286-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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