Important though the lesson is, this is too didactic and unrealistic to help children facing similar situations.
A laughless hyena regains his giggle in this debut from Jantzen and Claude.
Henry Hyena, who lives in a zoo, is having a blue day. He just doesn’t find the usual things funny—not the storks’ wobbly knees or an elephant’s burp—and he won’t join in with the other hyenas’ tricks, which include chasing the hares and cutting holes in the llamas’ new socks. “Now this kind of thing / is really quite rare / for hyenas always / laugh without care.” Dr. Long, a giraffe, knows exactly what’s troubling Henry: “It’s not that you’re sick, and you’re far from a fool. / You’ve just learned that laughing at others is cruel.” Suddenly enlightened, Henry goes on to teach the other hyenas about being nice to others, and just like that, they transform into the nicest animals in the zoo, and Henry’s laugh returns. While the verse is mostly reliable with regard to rhythm and rhyme, the words seem chosen just for their rhymes rather than to enhance or advance the story. Claude’s digital illustrations use bright colors and white backgrounds to focus readers’ attention. Children will have no doubt as to how the animals are feeling, especially the butts of the hyenas’ jokes and tricks.
Important though the lesson is, this is too didactic and unrealistic to help children facing similar situations. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2822-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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