Flawed but playful enough to please riddle-loving youngsters.
Tongue-twisting, ocean-themed riddles help children guess what marine creature is hiding under a flap.
In this busy board book, a lengthy, rhyming list of clues identifies a different sea animal on the verso, with the answer hiding under a flap on the recto. While the verses mostly scan, some vocabulary and syntax are fiddly, using unusual words like “landlubbers” or “spoutin’,” meaning that little ones parsing the complex rhyme may lose the thread of “tail” hinting at an answer of “whale.” Helpfully, readers get a glimpse of a part of the hiding animal on top of the flap to assist in solving the puzzle. Reading the riddles aloud is complicated by tall, thin, serif typeset. Placed upon a busy decorative border, it makes for a chaotic-looking page, and the chunky animal name hiding under the flap is similarly visually overwhelming. The colorful art, done in a collage style, is jaunty enough, with patterns and layering aplenty. It places squiggly magenta lines atop a vibrant watermelon-pink octopus and renders tentacles in plaid and stripes drifting off the jellyfish. Some may find the rough-cut smiles on the sea creatures creepy, not cute. The flaps are fairly strong, though the blunt square edges can make it hard to grip and flip. A companion title, Riddle Diddle Rainforest, shares the same style.
Flawed but playful enough to please riddle-loving youngsters. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68152-499-3
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Amicus Ink
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This revisitation of familiar holiday fare doesn’t stand out.
A visit from St. Nicholas with a trip to the barnyard, too.
In their cadence, rhyme scheme, and word choices, Manning’s adapted verses borrow liberally from the original poem credited to Clement C. Moore (and sometimes to Henry Livingston). Occasional word choices can read like missteps rather than innovations, however; the original poem’s “wondering eyes” are recast as “wandering eyes,” for example. Instead of using the poem’s original first-person narrator, this version employs the omniscient third to introduce a little lamb who awakens and observes Santa Claus’ sleigh landing on the farmhouse roof. No one joins her in her observations, but readers are invited to do so as she tries to figure out what’s happening in the full-bleed, rather flat art that seems like something from an animation studio. Eventually, it’s not what the lamb sees but what she hears that moves her from befuddlement to understanding, when Santa (who appears White) laughs “Ho, ho, ho.” As she watches him place presents under the tree in the house, she hopes he’ll have gifts for her, too. He does, of course, and the illustrations show the fruits, veggies, and other animal-friendly treats he puts into their stockings before leaving the little lamb to settle in again to sleep away the rest of Christmas Eve. It’s all sweet but hardly novel.
This revisitation of familiar holiday fare doesn’t stand out. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0625-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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