Parents-to-be may enjoy the poetry, but only the pictures are meant for children.
Poetic verses compare a child’s pre-birth potential with things in the natural world in this latest collaboration between Kerbel and Del Rizzo (Sun Dog, 2018).
“Before, you were… / A song in our hearts, / A star in our eyes, // A smile on our lips, / Shimmering skies, // The sun on our faces, / The full moon at night, // The tiniest murmur of tender delight.” While rhythmic and rather soporific, the comparisons are not ones children will be familiar with or likely to understand, and they only grow more abstract from this beginning. For parents-to-be and new moms and dads, though, the metaphors will surely strike a chord: A child in utero is “A curve in the road, up ahead out of view, / A whispered secret that only we knew.” And the ending is both beautifully illustrated and poignant: “Where Father Sky meets Mother Earth, // A new family dawns in the glow of your birth.” Accompanying the first line of the couplet are many of the animals that have appeared before in a sunrise gathering near the ocean, and accompanying the second is the light-skinned family—mother, father, baby—in each other’s arms and overlooking the same ocean sunrise. While the text is abstract and tends toward treacly, Del Rizzo’s polymer clay–and–acrylic wash artwork is the star here, adding texture and depth to the scenes, which show animals, many with babies, in their natural habitats.
Parents-to-be may enjoy the poetry, but only the pictures are meant for children. (Picture book. Adult)Pub Date: May 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77278-082-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pajama Press
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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