If (pigs and) bears could fly—but try as this book might, it can’t quite get off the ground.
A dream to fly is fulfilled in an unexpected fashion.
Ursa the bear stands out from all her classmates due to her exceptionally vivid imagination. Where others draw in black and white, Ursa paints in full color. Where others limit the sizes of their projects to what can easily fit in their hands, Ursa constructs a solar system that radiates from her head. Nighttime dreams awaken an even bigger and better goal. Ursa will fly. She carefully observes animals and machines that fly, then diagrams, builds, and tries, only to meet with repeated failure. Then a sign for a stage show in New York City’s Central Park reawakens her ambitions, and with visions of the eponymous constellation in her head, she auditions as “the most dynamic shooting star anyone had ever seen.” Success comes, albeit on the stage with glowing lights overhead and flowers strewn at her feet rather than in the air. Marcero, in her debut picture book, has constructed a little story about imagination in which success comes to those who try, try, and try again. Visions of nighttime travel amid the stars have morphed into stage stardom. Unfortunately, the mostly darkly toned artwork and the bears’ oddly shaped, squared-off heads lack appeal, and the busy pages require sustained viewing to decode.
If (pigs and) bears could fly—but try as this book might, it can’t quite get off the ground. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4413-1881-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peter Pauper Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
The runaway cookie in this Mexican bakery is a soft, brown, stubby-tailed piglet as impertinently bold and smug in his continual escape as his Gingerbread Boy cousin. “Chase me! Chase me down the street. But this is one piggy you won’t get to eat! / ¡Córrele, córrele! ¡Y Córrele más! ¡Soy el cochinito que jamás comerás!” This bouncy dual refrain extends the familiar cumulative text, rendered in both English and Spanish, as piggy manages to elude Marta the baker, Lorenzo the mechanic, Mamá Nita the beautician, Joaquín the telephone repairman and a host of other neighborhood adults—until he is outsmarted by Rosa, a little girl on her way to school, who foxily “helps him” cross the street. Safely tucked into her backpack, piggy is both a welcome surprise and an excuse for Rosa’s lateness to class. Deep opaque acrylic paintings of a colorful barrio and its residents in pursuit add the right amount of cultural flavor to this vivid Latino retelling. Recipe appended. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55885-586-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
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