If youngsters scratch their heads, take them to the yard or community garden to plant and make mud pies.
Cronin and Small combine talents in this fable for modern times: people who live in fragile kingdoms may need to get their hands dirty rebuilding.
Bloom the mud fairy lives in a glass kingdom where she turns weeds into blossoms and sand into glass; she also leaves mud and cracks in the glass in her wake. As the kingdom grows and gleams, folks protest Bloom's mess. She takes to the forest, but without her, the kingdom deteriorates. When the royals seek Bloom's magic to save them, they are outraged when the dirty creature places a bucket of mud at their feet. So they send tiny, ordinary Genevieve to talk to Bloom. Although Genevieve has heretofore preserved her delicate hands for the frivolous task of washing the queen’s sugar spoon, with Bloom's coaching she digs her hands into the mud to make...bricks! The text is set in different typefaces and fonts to help the narrative along, while Small uses watercolor washes in cool blues and warm greens and browns to indicate changing tones. Genevieve takes her new-learned "magic" back to the kingdom to rebuild, and the residents rejoice. All the characters, from royals to fairy, are white. The tale is enchanting but somewhat opaque, so metaphorical that children may need significant help from adults to understand it.
If youngsters scratch their heads, take them to the yard or community garden to plant and make mud pies. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0620-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming mix of science lesson and winsome storytelling.
The perky red squirrel introduced in The Leaf Thief (2020) is confused.
Bird and Squirrel both love summer, but when Bird calls out a cheery “Night night,” Squirrel, yawning himself, is incredulous: “BEDTIME? It can’t be! The sun’s still up, look!” Naturally there’s a lot more bewilderment ahead. Some weeks later, Squirrel is alarmed to see it’s dark at toothbrushing time. In skittish Squirrel’s view, a “sun thief”—who also made an odd “hoo” sound the other night—is responsible. Bird explains that as summer goes on, the sun sets earlier and earlier each night and reassures Squirrel that owls cry “hoo.” But the very next evening, at bathtime, Squirrel shines a bright light into the dark, sees something looming, and screams that the sun thief has “crashed into my tree!” Patient Bird, roused from slumber, points out that it’s just Bat. But “why was she flapping about in the dark?” Now Bird explains what nocturnal means. Once again, Squirrel is amusingly slow on the uptake, allowing readers to feel superior as Hemming gently folds in some science. Slater’s witty illustrations also lighten the lessons: Bird hangs a tiny T-shirt and shorts on a diminutive laundry line and sleeps tucked into a cozy repurposed sardine can, where a scared Squirrel attempts to squeeze in; Squirrel sports a pink bath towel and shower cap; a real thief quietly makes off with a couple of items (though Squirrel and Bird remain blissfully unaware).
A charming mix of science lesson and winsome storytelling. (info on light changes and diurnal/nocturnal) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464258183
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
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BOOK REVIEW
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