Learning to read can be hard, and this book offers youngsters tackling the skill needed sympathy.
Monster siblings Alphonse and Natalie (Alphonse, That Is Not OK to Do! 2016) return in a sympathetic story about learning to read.
Natalie is excited to go to school and to learn to read. She and her younger brother, Alphonse, love stories, both hearing them and telling them. But when the teacher hands Natalie her first primer, reading seems harder than expected, as “the letters and words looked like prickles or birds’ feet.” Despite the teacher’s encouragement to sound out the words, Natalie is frustrated by the difficulty as well as the absence of a real story in this book about a cat that sits. Practicing eventually gives her mastery of this book, but when Alphonse asks Natalie to read aloud one of his books, the letters and words look “like scuttling insects with too many legs and eyes.” Natalie declares, “I DO NOT LIKE BOOKS ANYMORE!” Instead, she decides to take care of her sick elephant, Sinéad, while making up her own more interesting story. Dad helps by writing the words to the pictures she draws with her brother, producing a homemade book she can read again and again. Bold, primary colors against white space create supportive scenes peopled by this lovable family of adorable, Muppet-like monsters eager to nurture some perseverance and full of patience with Natalie’s struggle and ultimate accomplishment. Natalie is on her way to reap the pleasures of learning to read, as seen in the endpapers, by authoring her own storybooks, a recognized strategy to foster beginning readers.
Learning to read can be hard, and this book offers youngsters tackling the skill needed sympathy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0334-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
A tongue-in-cheek bildungsroman about celebrating differences and the underrated superpowers of gentleness and sweetness.
Kaijus—giant Godzilla-like creatures—are supposed to have fearsome powers like atomic breath, the ability to summon storms, and magnetism—but not young Anzu.
Instead, he was born with the power of finding “beauty in small things.” Finally old enough to be assigned his own personal city to terrorize, Anzu hopes to impress his fond parents. But instead of inflicting fiery destruction on the tiny kodamalike residents at his feet, the best he can do is rain garlands of flowers down on them. He tries to wreak havoc by uprooting a tree but instead ends up creating a peaceful playground of blossoming animal topiaries. “I’ll never strike fear,” Anzu frets. “Am I even a kaiju?” Young readers may well share his doubts since, despite towering over the city of lumpy buildings made from low mounds of dirt, he and his family look more like cute, plump stuffies than scary reptilian beasts. When Anzu does at last manage a little devastation, his feeling of triumph is short-lived—and so, to restore joy and laughter, he exerts his special flower powers with surprising, and satisfying, results. The text is engaging and heartwarming without being cloying. The bright, colorful illustrations are rendered in watercolor and ink. Full-bleed artwork is interspersed with panels, which, along with the use of narrative boxes, lend a graphic feel to the presentation.
A tongue-in-cheek bildungsroman about celebrating differences and the underrated superpowers of gentleness and sweetness. (Graphic picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-77612-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
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