A humorous read-aloud that can lead to deeper conversations.
It’s hard to be upside down in a right-side-up world.
It is challenging for Sid to make friends and fit in, so he opts to spend time alone at home, but even there all the furniture is on the floors while he is on the ceilings, and it is lonely. When a basketball crashes through his window, his neighbors want to fix it and make it up to Sid by taking him to the amusement park. It goes disastrously, so Sid invites everyone for lunch, only for it to also go badly. The next day, while Sid is out, the neighbors sneak in to fix the window, but they also rearrange his house so that the furniture is on the ceiling. This act of friendship, along with deeper messages about accessibility, shows that when people are different, they shouldn’t have to adapt to the world—the world should adapt to them. Cartoon art with a bold use of line and a pared-down simplicity aids in maintaining the book’s lighter tone. It’ll be hard for readers not to chuckle at the sight of Sid using a fishing rod to access a book or placing his TV upside down so he can watch it while doing the dishes. The egg-shaped characters in this Australian import present mostly white with a few darker-skinned characters, including one neighbor.
A humorous read-aloud that can lead to deeper conversations. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61067-889-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
A rollicking tale of rivalry.
Sweet Street had just one baker, Monsieur Oliphant, until two new confectionists move in, bringing a sugar rush of competition and customers.
First comes “Cookie Concocter par excellence” Mademoiselle Fee and then a pie maker, who opens “the divine Patisserie Clotilde!” With each new arrival to Sweet Street, rivalries mount and lines of hungry treat lovers lengthen. Children will delight in thinking about an abundance of gingerbread cookies, teetering, towering cakes, and blackbird pies. Wonderfully eccentric line-and-watercolor illustrations (with whites and marbled pastels like frosting) appeal too. Fine linework lends specificity to an off-kilter world in which buildings tilt at wacky angles and odd-looking (exclusively pale) people walk about, their pantaloons, ruffles, long torsos, and twiglike arms, legs, and fingers distinguishing them as wonderfully idiosyncratic. Rotund Monsieur Oliphant’s periwinkle complexion, flapping ears, and elongated nose make him look remarkably like an elephant while the women confectionists appear clownlike, with exaggerated lips, extravagantly lashed eyes, and voluminous clothes. French idioms surface intermittently, adding a certain je ne sais quoi. Embedded rhymes contribute to a bouncing, playful narrative too: “He layered them and cherried them and married people on them.” Tension builds as the cul de sac grows more congested with sweet-makers, competition, frustration, and customers. When the inevitable, fantastically messy food fight occurs, an observant child finds a sweet solution amid the delicious detritus.
A rollicking tale of rivalry. (Picture book. 4-8 )Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-101-91885-2
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Pedestrian.
Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.
Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
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