May inspire some bathroom fun among readers; get those sponges ready….
When the family’s away, the toiletries play in this follow-up to Kitchen Disco (2017).
“When you kids go off to school, / And grown-ups go to work… / Your bathroom comes ALIVE / and all the things there go berserk!” The antics of various articles are depicted in ultrabright colors and tight rhymes. Shampoo plays “funky beats,” then “rinses and repeats.” The toothpaste “wriggles” and “squeezes,” the loofahs “dance like they don’t care,” and the mouthwash has “minty moves” all his own. Inevitably, the party gets a bit out of hand. The bathroom is a mess, and the family will be home soon. Shampoo organizes the cleanup. “And don’t forget the foam!” The two kids in the family notice that some bathroom articles have moved…and wonder. Party on! Foges’ punny text keeps a steady beat, but it is repetitive, missing an opportunity to present more vocabulary. Murphy makes each page a riot of shapes and colors. The various bathroom items have googly eyes, smiling mouths, and pipestem arms and legs, displaying a remarkable amount of personality. Readers can (and should) access the “Bathroom Boogie” video on YouTube, where a plummy British voice (kind of) raps the verse and children join him to sing the chorus. Notably, the family is biracial; the kids’ mom is white and the dad is black.
May inspire some bathroom fun among readers; get those sponges ready…. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-5713-4045-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Watching unlikely friends finally be as “happy as two someones can be” feels like being enveloped in your very own hug.
What to do when you’re a prickly animal hankering for a hug? Why, find another misfit animal also searching for an embrace!
Sweet but “tricky to hug” little Hedgehog is down in the dumps. Wandering the forest, Hedgehog begs different animals for hugs, but each rejects them. Readers will giggle at their panicked excuses—an evasive squirrel must suddenly count its three measly acorns; a magpie begins a drawn-out song—but will also be indignant on poor hedgehog’s behalf. Hedgehog has the appealingly pink-cheeked softness typical of Dunbar’s art, and the gentle watercolors are nonthreatening, though she also captures the animals’ genuine concern about being poked. A wise owl counsels the dejected hedgehog that while the prickles may frighten some, “there’s someone for everyone.” That’s when Hedgehog spots a similarly lonely tortoise, rejected due to its “very hard” shell but perfectly matched for a spiky new friend. They race toward each other until the glorious meeting, marked with swoony peach swirls and overjoyed grins. At this point, readers flip the book to hear the same gloomy tale from the tortoise’s perspective until it again culminates in that joyous hug, a book turn that’s made a pleasure with thick creamy paper and solid binding.
Watching unlikely friends finally be as “happy as two someones can be” feels like being enveloped in your very own hug. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-571-34875-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Simple words and big concepts will make this a godsend to parents at their wit's end.
This book seeks to use the power of persuasion to vanquish that most formidable of opponents: toddlers.
In this entry in the Big Kid Power series, a little black girl makes no bones about the fact that pacifiers (or “binkies”) are strictly baby territory. When she was little she needed one, but that was then. Whether she’s tired, sad, or hungry, there are other ways of being comforted: hugs and polite requests, for instance. After she gives her binky to a baby and bids it a very clear goodbye, the book ends with a triumphant, “I’M A BIG KID!” Using a striking color combination of orange, brown, and black, van Lieshout keeps her pages bold and bright, complementing the simple vocabulary. Such declarations as, “Do I still have a binky? // NO, BIG KIDS DON’T NEED A BINKY. / NOPE!” leave scant wiggle room for argument. In her author’s note at the end, van Lieshout says that after speaking to many parents about how they helped their kids bid their pacifiers adieu, “many of them had in common…a ritual of some sort.” The ritual here seems to be giving the pacifier away, though it may be missed by many readers. Companion title I Use the Potty uses a similar approach, with a proud, white boy as its guide.
Simple words and big concepts will make this a godsend to parents at their wit's end. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-3536-6
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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