Lap cuddlers listening to this sweet read-aloud will get all the snuggles they need.
This picture book by a father-daughter team features adorable monsters sharing friendly hugs.
As furry and multihued monsters demonstrate warm embraces, the rhyming narration defines hugs as “a loving squeeze, an inward tug.” No matter what size or age, no matter the season, the narrator continues, everyone wants to be held sometimes. The poem goes on to describe different types of positive actions: helping a young child to stand, cuddling in a group, sharing a smile or laugh, showing what makes each individual unique, being respectful, needing to cry, and even letting people have their own space. The inclusion of the last is an important balance to an otherwise high-contact work, especially for youngsters who may not like hugs as much as their peers. Renée Snelson’s cartoonish monsters all have long eyelashes, heart-shaped noses, shaggy fur in a wide variety of beautifully tinted colors, and expressive tails. The dynamic images show plenty of action as well as an assortment of loving embraces. Doug Snelson’s rhymes scan well, although a few take the imagery astray or use a metaphor that might go over the heads of the youngest readers: “Everybody needs to love. / Around the world, follow the dove.”
Lap cuddlers listening to this sweet read-aloud will get all the snuggles they need.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9777811-2-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Petalous Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color . (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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