No trick: This tale will be a treat for young readers this October.
A newish Halloween trend gets a rollicking treatment.
Instead of visiting homes on Halloween night, a group of racially diverse costumed kids, accompanied by their grown-ups, head to a parking lot and stop by the various cars, whose trunks are cleverly decorated in a variety of vividly colorful thematic ways. Readers will glean exciting, inventive ideas should they and their families and friends wish to embark on their own Trunk-or-Treat celebrations. At one trunk, the kids sample delectable treats and take some home (including healthy ones). Other cars are decorated with a Día de los Muertos theme (though that holiday goes unnamed in the text) and spooky monsters. One features a musical soundstage, complete with instruments and speakers, and another is a minilibrary, filled with exciting books. “Candy, fruits, books— / it’s treats galore!” So many wonderful, imaginative, and safe ways for families to enjoy the holiday. Expressed in bouncy rhymes, this entertaining read demonstrates that Halloween can be a community-focused event; here, the holiday offers an opportunity to celebrate with friends and neighbors rather than simply gather candy. The colorful digital illustrations are full of sprightly Halloween gusto.
No trick: This tale will be a treat for young readers this October. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780063347892
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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