A raucous tale for young noodle enthusiasts.
Grant’s rhyming picture book introduces kids to various pasta varieties.
Charli is a young girl who can’t get enough noodles. Clad in a tutu with her hair in wild, noodle-y blond curls, she declares, “I do not care what goes on top! Just don’t let the noodles stop!” The scenes alternate between relatively realistic and whimsical as Charli lassos her younger brother with fettucine, shreds on a linguine-strung guitar, and has a fusilli food fight with family. On ravioli-shaped pillows, Charli dreams of noodles dancing, and the silliness continues as Charli cleans outs the shelves in a grocery store’s pasta aisle. Overall, this is a lighthearted, hyperbolic read-aloud. It offers plenty of pasta terminology throughout, with Charli’s doll sometimes helpfully holding up a pronunciation guide; the rhyme scheme is well maintained throughout. The story ends with Charli asking to share her noodles with the reader, followed by a recipe for spaghetti and meatballs and a glossary of noodle shapes. Weaver’s cute, full-color illustrations features some airbrushed details that look a bit muddy, but this doesn’t affect the whimsy. Charli is depicted in the illustrations as White, and secondary characters have a range of skin tones.
A raucous tale for young noodle enthusiasts.Pub Date: June 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73464-788-4
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
If Black Lives Matter, they deserve more specificity than this.
A lushly illustrated picture book with a troubling message.
Little Lala walks with her father after his successful day of fishing. When Mama calls her home for bed, a host of “good night”s delays her: to the bird, the monkey, and even the rock. As Lala wanders through her village in the darkening twilight, readers appreciate its expansive beauty and Lala’s simple joys. Although it’s been artfully written and richly illustrated by an award-winning author of many multicultural stories, this book has problems that overshadow its beauty. “African veld” sets the story in southern Africa, but its vague locale encourages Americans to think that distinctions among African countries don’t matter. Lala wears braids or locks that stick straight up, recalling the 19th-century pickaninny, and her inconsistent skin color ranges from deep ebony like her father’s to light brown. Shadows may cause some of these differences, but if it weren’t for her identifiable hair, readers might wonder if the same child wanders from page to page. Perhaps most striking of all is Lala’s bedtime story: not an African tale but an American classic. While this might evoke nostalgia in some readers, it also suggests that southern Africa has no comparably great bedtime books for Lala, perhaps in part because American children’s literature dominates the world market.
If Black Lives Matter, they deserve more specificity than this. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-17384-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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