The just-right blend of drama and humor—all from a juvenile troll’s point of view—results in a story sure to elicit giggles,...
Tiny Troll does all he can to keep his beloved mommy from going out and leaving him with a sitter.
McNiff’s entertaining text convincingly conveys the mercurial wave of emotions a toddler troll experiences when his mother’s time and attention are about to be taken away. Whining at the announcement that she is attending a party “only for grown-ups” leads to his clinging to her as she paints her claws, waxes her tail and rubs “slime into her scales.” Once she is ready, “Tiny Troll took one look at his mommy and loved her so much he nearly popped!” But off she must go, and his adoration quickly turns to rejection and then a full-out temper tantrum that subsides into tears. Kindly Mrs. Hag coaxes him out of his despair with mugs of mudmilk and a good story. Soon, the red-and-white-striped-pajama–clad monster succumbs to bedtime. Wise preschoolers will relate to the young monster’s passionate reactions while eagerly poring over the gross yet silly details in the watercolor, gouache, pen and pencil illustrations. All ends well as Mommy wakes Tiny Troll with a kiss good night and a gift of his favorite treat—“a bag of rotten worms.”
The just-right blend of drama and humor—all from a juvenile troll’s point of view—results in a story sure to elicit giggles, delighted screams of “eww” and plenty of happy-ending “aww”s. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-48057-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chicken House/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.
A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.
Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
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BOOK REVIEW
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