WHEN IT’S SIX O’CLOCK IN SAN FRANCISCO

A TRIP THROUGH TIME ZONES

Omololu introduces the concept of time zones by depicting the slice-of-life activities of nine families in ten global cities. When Jared wakes in the titular city at 6:00, Geneviève is on her way to school at 9:00 in Montréal and Oliver, in London, plays soccer with classmates at 2:00 p.m. Rashida’s family in Lahore eats spicy dal for supper, while Min-Yue and his parents bike home at 10:00 p.m. in Beijing’s February cold. Numerical clocks for each city aggregate on successive spreads, and aftermatter includes a world map with the 24 time zones and brief historical and geographical information. Alternating between sequential panels and full-bleed spreads, DuBurke’s acrylics convey both cross-cultural unity and variations. However, paintings vary in technical skill, with some facial portrayals lacking consistency between panels. The authorial choice to create stories in each time zone rather opting for a more abbreviated treatment results in a regrettably overlong text. A serviceable treatment of the topic, useful for classrooms and families. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: July 20, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-618-76827-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Clarion Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009

TRASHY TOWN

Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches...

Listeners will quickly take up the percussive chorus—“Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy town! Is the trash truck full yet? NO”—as they follow burly Mr. Gilly, the garbage collector, on his rounds from park to pizza parlor and beyond.

Flinging cans and baskets around with ease, Mr. Gilly dances happily through streetscapes depicted with loud colors and large, blocky shapes; after a climactic visit to the dump, he roars home for a sudsy bath.

Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches Eve Merriam’s Bam Bam Bam (1995), also illustrated by Yaccarino, for sheer verbal and visual volume. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: April 30, 1999

ISBN: 0-06-027139-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999

RUSSELL THE SHEEP

Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: April 1, 2005

ISBN: 0-06-059848-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005

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