This sweetly unruly book is destined for mud-stained and ripped pages, as it is sure to accompany many a child on wild...
A child’s world appears in black and white—body indoors and face fixed to a screen—until another child zips by with an invitation to join in a barefoot ramble through the untamed outdoors.
To rhythmic, clipped verse, the pair runs, jumps, and swims through forest and water scenes. They pause to play, to pretend, and to savor. But it’s not all sunshine. A pop-up storm serves as a metaphor for life’s mixed weather patterns. “Rain dumps. / There’ll be slippery slumps. / Bruises. Bumps… / and ROTTEN STUMPS!” The storm passes and the sun returns, so the adventure continues. Covell’s illustrations are exuberant, projecting to readers the raw joy and wonder of exploring the natural world. Thick strokes of what looks like watercolor bleed past bold crayon outlines, creating a delightfully messy sense of movement. This pace matches the staccato rhythm of the fast-flowing rhyming text. The skin tones of the children shift through various shades of beige and brown. Though Covell’s intention for the racial ambiguity is unclear, this inclusion of brown-skinned children encouraged to run “wild” in green spaces is a hugely welcome one given their historic exclusion from same.
This sweetly unruly book is destined for mud-stained and ripped pages, as it is sure to accompany many a child on wild adventures in their own parks, playgrounds, and backyards. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-670-01411-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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