A deterministic message detracts from the math.
For 10 flower friends, the grass is always greener…in the sky.
Ten Fantasia-like flowers with adorable faces and leaf arms/hands love being together and basking in the sun, but they also can’t help wanting to break free of their roots and fly when they see the fairies flitting about in the moonlight. One night, “Said the tiny blue one, / ‘Fairy up in the sky, / you see, I’m a flower, / but I want to fly.’ ” While the fairy is puzzled at the flower’s discontent, she grants its wish and transforms it into a butterfly. One by one the others join their mate in the sky as butterflies, each one’s color reflecting its flower origin. At daybreak, though, the new butterflies regret the transformation, and the understanding fairy changes them back again: “But big and tall, / or short and small, / being ourselves / is best of all!” Really? There isn’t even one flower that would really rather fly all the time? Throughout, McKellar emphasizes that there are always 10 in all, though some may be flowers and some butterflies at any given point. The endpapers reinforce ways to make 10 by showing 11 combinations, all in two rows of five, which may confuse children, rather than always keeping butterflies separate from flowers and allowing one row to be longer than the other. The bright colors, butterflies, flowers, and the fairy, who is a dark-skinned pixie with long black hair, seem calibrated to attract girly audiences.
A deterministic message detracts from the math. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-93382-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
The runaway cookie in this Mexican bakery is a soft, brown, stubby-tailed piglet as impertinently bold and smug in his continual escape as his Gingerbread Boy cousin. “Chase me! Chase me down the street. But this is one piggy you won’t get to eat! / ¡Córrele, córrele! ¡Y Córrele más! ¡Soy el cochinito que jamás comerás!” This bouncy dual refrain extends the familiar cumulative text, rendered in both English and Spanish, as piggy manages to elude Marta the baker, Lorenzo the mechanic, Mamá Nita the beautician, Joaquín the telephone repairman and a host of other neighborhood adults—until he is outsmarted by Rosa, a little girl on her way to school, who foxily “helps him” cross the street. Safely tucked into her backpack, piggy is both a welcome surprise and an excuse for Rosa’s lateness to class. Deep opaque acrylic paintings of a colorful barrio and its residents in pursuit add the right amount of cultural flavor to this vivid Latino retelling. Recipe appended. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55885-586-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
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