Would you like them anywhere? — Well, try them before you finally refuse... Only Dr. Seuss could break down the resistance, and he does it with a contagious use of repeat words and phrases- and winds up with complete capitulation. Here's a tale with a moral- but done so engagingly and absurdly that the reluctant beginning reader may find himself hoist by his own petard. Try for yourself. Here's a book an adult will use — that will be taken over by the young fry until the oldsters cry for mercy. Line and wash- three colors flat.
Pub Date: Oct. 3, 1960
ISBN: 0394800168
Page Count: 62
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Eminently helpful, affirming, and necessary.
A trip to a food pantry allows a child to both give and receive help.
While many children’s books about food pantries and soup kitchens focus on how children can help others, this story places a child in need at its center. Molly (who presents as a girl of color with light brown skin and full, wavy brown hair) and her mother (who has lighter skin and straight, dark hair) are experiencing food insecurity, as evidenced by the paltry items in the illustrations of their kitchen and Molly’s grumbling belly when she goes to bed at night. Her mother tells her that they are going to get groceries at a food pantry—a place they’ve never before visited. When they arrive, they join a line of people waiting, including Molly’s classmate Caitlin, who is embarrassed to be seen there. “Everybody needs help sometimes,” Molly’s mother has told her, and she finds Caitlin’s evident sense of shame confusing. Molly passes time by drawing pictures, an activity Caitlin joins when others in line request drawings. They come to see their art making as a way of helping others, just as the good food in the food pantry, including a treat of cookies, helps them. Magro’s naïve illustrations emphasize her racially diverse characters’ faces, expressions of concern far fewer than smiles in emphasis of the book’s theme.
Eminently helpful, affirming, and necessary. (author's note) (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-7236-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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