A genuinely tender and charmingly illustrated story of friendship, empathy, and memory.
A rat lays claim to a girl’s special hat until her pal steps in to help in this picture book.
Good friends Nora and Lenny, armed with allowance money they’ve saved, set out on a cool, breezy day for the movie theater. Lenny is fascinated by the green fedora Nora is wearing and asks to try it on. Before he can return it, the wind whisks it away and out of reach: “the hat whirled and twirled through the air like a top /...out over the river, the wind let it drop.” A river rat grabs the waterborne hat and refuses to give it up, and the kids are surprised when they learn the reason for the refusal. However, the fedora means a lot to Nora—the author’s hint as to the reason why is subtle and touching—and Lenny takes unselfish action to help his friend, kindly negotiating with the cranky rodent for the hat’s return. Veteran children’s author Stevenson’s active, rhyming text tells a tale that’s sweet but never cloying, thanks in part to the inclusion of the comically acerbic rat. Artist Mongodi complements the book’s sentiment and humor with the soft, watercolor resonance of illustrations that are alive with detail, including repeat appearances by a certain sea gull that young readers will discover.
A genuinely tender and charmingly illustrated story of friendship, empathy, and memory.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73482-422-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frog Prince Books
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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