This young monster’s journey could inspire some self-reflection on those cranky, crabby days
A mother’s descriptive complaint sets her misbehaving preschooler to imagining the enjoyment of the crude mischief of a monster’s life.
Transforming himself into a scaly-skinned, green-faced ghoul, this boy begins to growl and grumble, sneer and scowl. He befriends the pet monster under his bed and makes general mayhem. This little guy revels in the grime of the gooey, slimy mud, loudly revving up his monster trucks and staying up all night, unafraid of the dark. But without manners and basic courtesy (please and thank you), he realizes that playing solo is disappointingly unpleasant. “Being a monster isn’t so great. / I’m going home—hope it isn’t too late….” Cozy in bed, sweetness returns him to a brown-haired, smooth-featured, sleepy little human. Moore’s soft-toned, gentle and whimsical cartoon drawings in pencil and watercolors easily complement the smoothly readable, rhyming text. Much like Sendak’s beloved Max, this child needs some time to exercise his outrageous thoughts before coming to terms with his own self-control. The comparison to Max is so obvious the book can’t help but suffer from it, but it makes its own small rumpus.
This young monster’s journey could inspire some self-reflection on those cranky, crabby days . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58536-827-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Skip it
This book wants to be feminist.
Princess Penelope Pineapple, illustrated as a white girl with dark hair and eyes, is the Amelia Bloomer of the Pineapple Kingdom. She has dresses, but she prefers to wear pants as she engages in myriad activities ranging from yoga to gardening, from piloting a plane to hosting a science fair. When it’s time for the Pineapple Ball, she imagines wearing a sparkly pants outfit, but she worries about Grand Lady Busyboots’ disapproval: “ ‘Pants have no place on a lady!’ she’d say. / ‘That’s how it has been, and that’s how it shall stay.’ ” In a moment of seeming dissonance between the text and art, Penny seems to resolve to wear pants, but then she shows up to the ball in a gown. This apparent contradiction is resolved when the family cat, Miss Fussywiggles, falls from the castle into the moat and Princess Penelope saves her—after stripping off her gown to reveal pink, flowered swimming trunks and a matching top. Impressed, Grand Lady Busyboots resolves that princesses can henceforth wear whatever they wish. While seeing a princess as savior rather than damsel in distress may still seem novel, it seems a stretch to cast pants-wearing as a broadly contested contemporary American feminist issue. Guthrie and Oppenheim’s unimaginative, singsong rhyme is matched in subtlety by Byrne’s bright illustrations.
Skip it . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2603-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Though this celebration of community is joyful, there just is not much here.
A sugary poem, very loosely based on the familiar song, lacks focus.
Using only the refrain from the original (“One love, one heart, let’s get together and feel all right!”), the reggae great’s daughter Cedella Marley sees this song as her “happy song” and adapts it for children. However, the adaptation robs it of life. After the opening lines, readers familiar with the original song (or the tourism advertisement for Jamaica) will be humming along only to be stopped by the bland lines that follow: “One love, what the flower gives the bee.” and then “One love, what Mother Earth gives the tree.” Brantley-Newton’s sunny illustrations perfectly reflect the saccharine quality of the text. Starting at the beginning of the day, readers see a little girl first in bed, under a photograph of Bob Marley, the sun streaming into her room, a bird at the window. Each spread is completely redundant—when the text is about family love, the illustration actually shows little hearts floating from her parents to the little girl. An image of a diverse group getting ready to plant a community garden, walking on top of a river accompanies the words “One love, like the river runs to the sea.”
Though this celebration of community is joyful, there just is not much here. (afterword) (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4521-0224-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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