A charming adventure and excellent read-aloud tale—delightful.
In this picture book, a creative little boy rides his truck, overcoming all obstacles to deliver an important letter.
Boarding his red toy truck with a determined expression, a boy with pale skin and brown curly hair clutches a letter. “Beep! Beep! Hurry! Clear the way! / I have a special job today,” he announces. Through many incidents (a bad traffic jam, a shortcut through the zoo, a broken bridge, a jungle with snakes and an alligator, gloppy mud), the boy and his truck prevail. The vehicle turns into a little red airplane or a boat or sprouts a plow to get through the mud. On every spread, a little brown monkey can be spied who, unknown to the hero, watches him carefully and often helps save the significant letter—a sweet love note to Mom. Ferreri (Huggle Wuggle, Bedtime Snuggle, 2019, etc.) gives readers a well-balanced mix of inventive escapades with the welcome reassurance of returning home to a warm cuddle. The story is told in rhyming, well-scanning couplets, compressed and powerful, often with effective sound effects: “Ka-splish, ker-splash”; “Glub glub, vroom vroom.” The expressive illustrations by McEachen (Plugged In, 2009) expand the tale with thoughtful details; for example, the monkey gives the boy a 10 for sticking the final landing. In a lovely touch, the boy’s backyard play area includes all the elements from his journey of the imagination, such as a sand mountain, toy alligator, plow truck, and airplane.
A charming adventure and excellent read-aloud tale—delightful.Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-946101-96-9
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Spork
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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