Not the best catch for Christmas.
A visit from St. Nicholas, under the sea.
The text’s conceit is immediately apparent in the title, which recasts the narrator, his wife, their children, and St. Nick as lobsters. The last is dubbed Sea Santa, and he rides underwater in a scallop-shell sleigh pulled by minnows. While this version’s faltering rhyme and cadence may feel especially jarring due to the direct inspiration from the well-known 1823 poem, the text cleverly plays with sea-life facts and terms in lines such as “Skate cases were hung on the reef with care / In hopes that Sea Santa soon would be there.” The appropriately watery illustrations, meanwhile, rightfully eschew the traditional berry reds and piney greens of traditional Christmas books in favor of a cooler palette for the undersea setting. Missed opportunities to fully engage with the text undermine the artistic achievement, however, particularly with regard to Sea Santa’s visual characterization. For example, instead of imaginatively and directly depicting Sea Santa with the lines beginning, “His black eyes they bobbled, his hard shell blue-green, / His fantail flip-flopped with a glimmering sheen,” the accompanying spread is dominated by water and seaweed and adopts a distant perspective that obscures the Santa-inspired figure in the lower corners of the spread. Backmatter provides facts about lobsters but fails to elevate the book as a whole.
Not the best catch for Christmas. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7643-5826-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Schiffer
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Effectively captures the excitement surrounding Valentine’s Day.
A collection of poems follows a group of elementary school students as they prepare for and celebrate Valentine’s Day.
One student starts the day by carefully choosing clothing in pink, purple, or red, while a family kicks off the morning with a breakfast of red, heart-shaped pancakes. At school, children create valentines until party time finally arrives with lots of yummy treats. The students give valentines to their school friends, of course, but we also see one child making a “special delivery” to a pet, a stuffed animal, family members, and even the crossing guard. The poems also extend the Valentine’s celebration to the community park, where other couples—some older, one that appears to be same-sex—are struck by cupid’s “magical love arrows.” Note the child running away: “Blech!” Not everyone wants to “end up in love!!!” But the spread devoted to Valentine’s jokes will please readers more interested in humor than in romance and inspire children to create their own jokes. To make the celebration complete, the last pages of the book contain stickers and a double-sided “BEE MINE!” valentine that readers can, with adult help, cut out. Cheery and kid-friendly, the poems can be read independently or from cover to cover as a full story. The cartoonish illustrations include lots of hearts and emphasize the growing Valentine’s Day excitement, depicting a diverse classroom that includes students who use wheelchairs. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Effectively captures the excitement surrounding Valentine’s Day. (Picture-book poetry. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-38717-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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