While it’s a less-than-perfect offering, preschoolers who crave gimmicks to manipulate will enjoy giving this one a whirl,...
Through the twist of paperboard flaps, objects are transformed.
The action is on the right-hand pages. A man’s top hat reveals a bird hiding underneath; a salad bowl flips upside down to become a turtle. Across the spread, rhyming couplets describe the transformation. The majority of these paper-engineering magic tricks will enchant children, but some of these metamorphoses feel a bit forced; the clock that morphs into an owl requires the twisting of seven separate flaps and does not end up looking much like the nocturnal bird. Manceau’s flat, Lois Ehlert–like graphics in a dark and highly saturated palette are eye-catching, although the almost entirely black rocket/penguin is too dark against a navy blue background. The poetry is also uneven, including some delightful lines mixed in with forced analogies and lines that don’t scan. The final two pages provide before-and-after pictures of each switch as a helpful guide. The back of this board book bears a large choking-hazard warning for children under 3, but since the verse is sophisticated and the manipulations require more dexterity than the average toddler possesses, the package is more appropriate for older kiddos anyway.
While it’s a less-than-perfect offering, preschoolers who crave gimmicks to manipulate will enjoy giving this one a whirl, literally. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-2-8480-1944-4
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Loewen’s story is a simple snapshot of kindergarten graduation day, and it stays true to form, with Yoshikawa’s artwork resembling photos that might be placed in an album—and the illustrations cheer, a mixed media of saturated color, remarkable depth and joyful expression. The author comfortably captures the hesitations of making the jump from kindergarten to first grade without making a fuss about it, and she makes the prospect something worth the effort. Trepidation aside, this is a reminder of how much fun kindergarten was: your own cubbyhole, the Halloween parade, losing a tooth, “the last time we’ll ever sit criss-cross applesauce together.” But there is also the fledgling’s pleasure at shucking off the past—swabbing the desks, tossing out the stubbiest crayons, taking the pictures off the wall—and surging into the future. Then there is graduation itself: donning the mortarboards, trooping into the auditorium—“Mr. Meyer starts playing a serious song on the piano. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to march”—which will likely have a few adult readers feeling the same. (Picture book. 4-5)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7614-5807-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
Digital illustrations vary in format from spot art to full-bleed spreads, but everything from the begowned princesses to the...
The particular challenge of redoing a well-known, oft-published fairy tale is to offer a fresh or fruitful take, and this one doesn’t.
Digital illustrations vary in format from spot art to full-bleed spreads, but everything from the begowned princesses to the sparkling underground land they visit each night falls flat. The princesses are named for blossoms, each one “lovelier than the flower she was named for,” but their impossibly tiny waists and huge blue eyes look like a cheap, dull version of Disney. Their dance postures barely connote motion. On the page that displays the tale’s premise—that “[e]very morning, without fail, the soles of the princesses’ shoes were worn out and full of holes”—Barrager shows (nine) slippers that are grubby and scuffed but lack a single hole. Matching the insipid aesthetic is a text stripped of grit. No men lose their lives trying to solve the mystery before the hero (here, Pip the cobbler) does, and there are no men in the princesses’ underground boats, which “float silently” of their own accord. The boats need to float of their own accord, because these princesses have neither agency nor consciousness: They’re asleep from start to finish of the dancing escapades.Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8118-7696-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
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