by Daniela Drescher ; illustrated by Daniela Drescher ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2017
A visually charming peek into the secret life of elves.
From spring to winter, elves pursue hidden seasonal activities.
After a winter of guarding their queen and her “precious jewels” in a “crystal cave,” elves emerge to welcome spring sunshine and blooming snowdrops. They tend flowers, collecting their petals. On summer nights, they count the stars, and during summer days they watch butterflies “drift and flutter from flower to flower.” When autumn arrives, the elves “wander in the undergrowth” and gather fruits, berries, and nuts, which they share with hungry birds at the first winter snow. With winter’s arrival, the elves stay warm in their underground homes until spring returns. The progression of seasons drives this otherwise plot-free description of elfin activities. Luminous illustrations in pencil and vibrant watercolors reveal the elves’ miniature world concealed beneath tree roots and emerging flowers of spring, scarlet poppies of summer, brambles and toadstools of autumn, and winter’s bare branches. Resembling country folk dressed in traditional peaked caps, pointy shoes, short jackets, aprons, and smocks, the wee, light-skinned elves carry on their activities of gathering and gazing in double-page seasonal vignettes surrounded by plants, insects, birds, and tiny rodents rendered with realistic accuracy, creating the illusion they are an integral part of the natural world.
A visually charming peek into the secret life of elves. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-178250-242-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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by Daniela Drescher ; illustrated by Daniela Drescher ; translated by Polly Lawson
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by Jason Lefebvre ; illustrated by Zac Retz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2013
Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)
Can there be too much glue? Matty’s about to find out.
Matty’s art teacher warns him that too much glue will never dry, but Matty (and his dad) loves glue; they play with it constantly. So Matty finds the “fullest” bottle in the art room and squirts it all over his project. Then he flops down in the middle of the mess…and gets stuck. He’s “a blucky stucky mess!” His friends try to lasso him with yarn and haul him out, but the yarn breaks and gets stuck; now, he’s “a clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess.” A Lego tow truck snaps apart in another rescue attempt, making him a “click-brick, clingy stringy, blucky stucky mess!” When the bell rings, the glue’s dry, and dad must peel gluey Matty off the table. At home, he’s divested of his glue suit, and Dad puts a magnet on it and sticks it to the fridge. After dinner, the family explores the fun of duct tape. Despite the busy plot and superabundance of exclamation marks, Lefebvre’s debut never rises to the level of mayhem or fun it aspires to. The cumulative portion of the tale loses rhyme, rhythm and logic six pages before it ends. Retz’s Photoshop paintings are bright, wide-eyed and goofy, but they can’t add enough fun to compensate for the lackluster text.
Great gobs of glue should be more fun than this. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-9362612-7-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flashlight Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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by Hannah Carmona Dias ; illustrated by Dolly Georgieva-Gode ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 14, 2018
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses...
This tan-skinned, freckle-faced narrator extols her own virtues while describing the challenges of being of mixed race.
Protagonist Lilly appears on the cover, and her voluminous curly, twirly hair fills the image. Throughout the rhyming narrative, accompanied by cartoonish digital illustrations, Lilly brags on her dark skin (that isn’t very), “frizzy, wild” hair, eyebrows, intellect, and more. Her five friends present black, Asian, white (one blonde, one redheaded), and brown (this last uses a wheelchair). This array smacks of tokenism, since the protagonist focuses only on self-promotion, leaving no room for the friends’ character development. Lilly describes how hurtful racial microaggressions can be by recalling questions others ask her like “What are you?” She remains resilient and says that even though her skin and hair make her different, “the way that I look / Is not all I’m about.” But she spends so much time talking about her appearance that this may be hard for readers to believe. The rhyming verse that conveys her self-celebration is often clumsy and forced, resulting in a poorly written, plotless story for which the internal illustrations fall far short of the quality of the cover image.
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses the mark on both counts. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63233-170-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Eifrig
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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by Hannah Carmona Dias ; illustrated by Brenda Figueroa
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