by David Weinstone ; illustrated by Magali Le Huche ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2017
Weinstone, a former punk rocker and founder of the preschool music program Music for Aardvarks and Other Mammals, has...
A little black boy who has trouble falling asleep decides to find out how other animal friends get comfortable.
He leaves his rumpled bed and ventures out to discover that: a bat sleeps upside down in a cave, a horse dozes standing up, a whale slumbers on the gently rolling waves, a lark beds down in a nest, the mole snuggles in a hole, a frog stays on a log, a seal reclines on the rocks, and more. Yet all of these positions and places are inappropriate for a little boy. So back in bed and tuckered out from exploring, the boy finally nods off. Le Huche’s flat, boldly hued illustrations move the boy from his moonlit, dark azure bedroom filled with toys, books, his art, stuffed animals, and musical instruments through his nighttime journey, which is rendered in the opaque blues and greens of darkness. Looking closely, readers can see that this boy has not gone all that far, as the animals he peeks in on are all counterparts of the familiar animal characters in his room. The rhyming text is written as a song with a repetitive refrain in which the child imagines playing the part of the various creatures (“A whale I’ll be, I say to me, / but still I cannot sleep”) before he mentally returns to his bedroom, now awash in the purple hue of deep sleep. An addendum includes lyrics with guitar chords.
Weinstone, a former punk rocker and founder of the preschool music program Music for Aardvarks and Other Mammals, has created a soothing piece for little bedtime resisters. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-30535-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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by David Weinstone ; illustrated by Vin Vogel
by Sam McBratney ; illustrated by Anita Jeram ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2020
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back.
Little Nutbrown Hare ventures out into the wide world and comes back with a new companion in this sequel to Guess How Much I Love You (1994).
Big Nutbrown Hare is too busy, so after asking permission, Little Nutbrown Hare scampers off over the rolling meadow to play by himself. After discovering that neither his shadow nor his reflection make satisfactory playmates (“You’re only another me!”), Little Nutbrown comes to Cloudy Mountain…and meets “Someone real!” It’s a white bunny who introduces herself as Tipps. But a wonderful round of digging and building and chasing about reaches an unexpected end with a game of hide-and-seek, because both hares hide! After waiting a long time to be found, Little Nutbrown Hare hops on home in disappointment, wondering whether he’ll ever see Tipps again. As it turns out, it doesn’t take long to find out, since she has followed him. “Now, where on earth did she come from?” wonders Big Nutbrown. “Her name is Tipps,” Little Nutbrown proudly replies, “and she’s my friend.” Jeram’s spacious, pale-toned, naturalistic outdoor scenes create a properly idyllic setting for this cozy development in a tender child-caregiver relationship—which hasn’t lost a bit of its appealing intimacy in the more than 25 years since its first appearance. As in the first, Big Nutbrown Hare is ungendered, facilitating pleasingly flexible readings.
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1747-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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by Sam McBratney ; illustrated by Linda Ólafsdóttir
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by Sam McBratney ; illustrated by Anita Jeram
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by Sam McBratney ; illustrated by Anita Jeram
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IN THE NEWS
by Julie Rowan-Zoch ; illustrated by Julie Rowan-Zoch ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021
Animated and educational.
A hare and a ground squirrel banter about the differences between related animals that are often confused for one another.
Jack is “no Flopsy, Mopsy, or Cottontail,” but a “H-A-R-E, hare!” Like sheep and goats, or turtles and tortoises, rabbits and hares may look similar, but hares are bigger, their fur changes color in the winter, and they are born with their eyes wide open. As the ground squirrel (not to be mistaken for a chipmunk (even though Jack cheekily calls it “Chippie”) and Jack engage in playful discussion about animals, a sneaky coyote prowls after them through the Sonoran Desert. This picture book conveys the full narrative in spirited, speech-bubbled dialogue set on expressive illustrations of talking animals. Dark outlines around the characters make their shapes pop against the softly blended colors of the desert backgrounds. Snappy back-and-forth paired with repetition and occasional rhyme enhances the story’s appeal as a read-aloud. As the story progresses, the colors of the sky shift from dawn to dusk, providing subtle, visual bookends for the narrative. One page of backmatter offers a quick guide to eight easily confused pairs, and a second turns a subsequent exploration of the book into a seek-and-find of 15 creatures (and one dessert) hidden in the desert. Unfortunately, while most of the creatures from the seek-and-find appear in poses that match the illustrations in the challenge, not all of them are consistently represented. (This book was reviewed digitally with 7-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 53.3% of actual size.)
Animated and educational. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-12506-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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by Bobby Moynihan ; illustrated by Julie Rowan-Zoch
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by Tom Lichtenheld ; illustrated by Julie Rowan-Zoch
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