Folk-art–inspired illustrations, astonishing in both their technical accomplishment and their heart, harmonize beautifully...
A thunderstorm interrupts a young girl and her farm family’s daily routine, until finally the drips stop dropping for some muddy fun before bedtime.
Succinct rhymes, measured and musical, trace the arc of the day, from morning to moontime, with astonishing restraint, grace and fluidity. Words land on readers’ ears with the pleasing, plodding patter of raindrops. Unexpected word choices endow simple poetry with remarkable inflections: “Gray on gray. Dark and glooming. / Black on black. Storm is looming”; “Pounding, hounding, noisy-sounding. / Dripping, dropping. Never stopping.” Double-page illustrations, enriched by copious crosshatches and confident linework, bring the farm’s kitchen, pastures, barnyard and stable into almost three-dimensional focus. Rounded shapes soften each scene, instilling the pictures with bosomy warmth that surfaces everywhere: as a hat, a bucket, a dandelion, a steppingstone, an umbrella, the sun. A radiant sun, beaming with bars of light clear to the horizon, serves as a perfect visual for this idyllic song for the agricultural family—one that’s weathered many storms.
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1267-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A disappointing follow-up.
Inventor Izzy Gizmo is back in this sequel to her eponymous debut (2017).
While busily inventing one day, Izzy receives an invitation from the Genius Guild to their annual convention. Though Izzy’s “inventions…don’t always work,” Grandpa (apparently her sole caregiver) encourages her to go. The next day they undertake a long journey “over fields, hills, and waves” and “mile after mile” to isolated Technoff Isle. There, Izzy finds she must compete against four other kids to create the most impressive machine. The colorful, detail-rich illustrations chronicle how poor Izzy is thwarted at every turn by Abi von Lavish, a Veruca Salt–esque character who takes all the supplies for herself. But when Abi abandons her project, Izzy salvages the pieces and decides to take Grandpa’s advice to create a machine that “can really be put to good use.” A frustrated Izzy’s impatience with a friend almost foils her chance at the prize, but all’s well that ends well. There’s much to like: Brown-skinned inventor girl Izzy is an appealing character, it’s great to see a nurturing brown-skinned male caregiver, the idea of an “Invention Convention” is fun, and a sustainable-energy invention is laudable. However, these elements don’t make up for rhymes that often feel forced and a lackluster story.
A disappointing follow-up. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68263-164-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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