It’s mildly diverting, but there are a host of more compelling explorations of what it takes to be friends.
A dialogue between predator and prey upends the expected outcome of their encounter given their positions within the food chain.
Cat is ready to eat Bird, but the quick-thinking, diminutive creature has the sense to ask why. When the feline does not have a well-reasoned response, Bird suggests they become friends and sets out to show the surprised listener where to find the best box (for playing), the highest branch, and the most desirable car to hide under. Just as Cat is considering the possibilities, Bird raises reverse suitability questions. They finally decide to give it a go—until they realize they have nothing in common. Uncluttered, digital compositions are rendered in black (the cat) and white (the bird) on a taupe background; the type colors correspond to the respective characters, so there is no need for quotation marks or framing explanations. The caricatures are formed from stylized shapes with a limited range of expressions: The feline is essentially a rectangle topped with two curved, triangular ears, while the bird is a small white circle with wings, tail feathers, and thin legs. At the conclusion, the two discover that they both enjoy painting, so the palette expands as they render each other against a paint-splotched background.
It’s mildly diverting, but there are a host of more compelling explorations of what it takes to be friends. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-286593-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf.
A big, yellow hound dog has small, wonderful dreams.
Emma’s dreams are doggily simple. Rendered in gray, they manifest above her contentedly slumbering form: “singing, dancing, rolling in grass, splashing in water, going for walks,” and eating. After she wakes and eats, she naps again, sprawled on her back, tummy distended, the very picture of canine bliss. Pages turn, with Cooper’s lyrical text focusing on Emma and her sensations: “The days went on, shifting and taking shape, and now there were times when her whole body felt strange, but there was no stopping the days.” A gently curving line of overlapping Emmas, rising, stretching, scratching, shifting, and resettling, underscores time’s march. Adult readers may be anxious at this point, fearing Emma’s impending death with the page turn—but no, it turns out Emma’s been literally full of wonders, and she gazes mildly at a puppy emerging from her own body. Then there they are, seven little Emmas, and they now embody her dreams. Cooper’s brushy, loose watercolors, outlined in swoops of ink, complement his Emma-focused text. She resides in a human home, but her owner appears only as tan-skinned hands extending from the margin to offer a bowl of food, caress her snout, or towel off a pup. In this way, Cooper invites readers into Emma’s interiority, allowing them to sit quietly and wonder with her.
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884763
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history.
A sonorous, soporific invitation to join woodland creatures in bedding down for the night.
As in her Moon Babies, illustrated by Amy Hevron (2019), Jameson displays a rare gift for harmonious language and rhyme. She leads off with a bear: “Come home, Big Paws. / Berry picker / Honey trickster / Shadows deepen in the glen. / Lumber back inside your den.” Continuing in the same pattern, she urges a moose (“Velvet Nose”), a deer (“Tiny Hooves”), and a succession of ever smaller creatures to find their nooks and nests as twilight deepens in Boutavant’s woodsy, autumnal scenes and snow begins to drift down. Through each of those scenes quietly walks an alert White child (accompanied by an unusually self-controlled pooch), peering through branches or over rocks at the animals in the foregrounds and sketching them in a notebook. The observer’s turn comes round at last, as a bearded parent beckons: “This way, Small Boots. / Brave trailblazer / Bright stargazer / Cabin’s toasty. Blanket’s soft. / Snuggle deep in sleeping loft.” The animals go unnamed, leaving it to younger listeners to identify each one from the pictures…if they can do so before the verses’ murmurous tempo closes their eyes.
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7063-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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