A playful, dreamily illustrated adventure.
In Blough’s picture book, a young girl treks from bedroom to breakfast table while imagining herself to be a polar bear.
Emma, depicted at the outset of the story as a polar bear cub, wakes one morning in her ice-cavern bedroom, her mother calling her to breakfast. Anticipating a feast of berries, seaweed, and fish, Emma sets out, following her nose up icy cliffs, down slippery slopes, across shimmering plains, and over jagged crevasses. Along the way, she encounters a bristly, tusked walrus intent on stealing her meal. They roll and tumble, but Emma wins out. She claims her delectable prize, which turns out to be... pancakes. Though skeptical of the human breakfast staple in polar-bear form, Emma as a blonde human girl finds them delicious. She and her brother polish off their meal and go to play some more. (“LEFT PAW, RIGHT PAW, LEFT PAW AGAIN, repeating her steps till she reached the end.”) Blough narrates Emma’s story via a straightforward, loosely rhymed text placed strategically amid the unfolding action and rendered bold and EXTRA-LARGE where emphasis demands. Mongodi, making sublime use of subdued, arctic colors, provides a two-page spread of digital illustrations that sparkle with a sense of place and personality. Capturing the essence of traditional acrylic and oil paintings, these images render bear-cub Emma a most delightful and expressive protagonist, transforming her imaginings into wondrous works of art. Young readers will thrill and tumble along to the denouement.
A playful, dreamily illustrated adventure.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2025
ISBN: 9798991726719
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bluebird Lane
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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