A mixed message shopped in a queasy jacket.
Hemingway’s story of friendship against the odds is sweet, but it has hitched its wagon to a very challenging vehicle.
Mac is an apple, a polished piece of perfection, but he's an easygoing, humble bit of applehood. He enjoys art classes and a slow drift down the neighborhood stream. He likes a spring rain and is napping in the drizzle one day when a worm by the name of Will seeks shelter from the storm in Mac’s head (Mac is pretty much all head). They become fast friends, with Will living in a hole he drilled in Mac’s head. This just seems weird, not to mention painful. When the other apples in the neighborhood start giving Mac grief—“And no one in the orchard would play with them. NOT EVEN the crab apples. Crab apples can be so mean”—calling him a bad apple, readers will feel protective toward the little red guy. And it doesn’t hurt, sympathy-wise, that the characters and settings are lusciously drawn. But still, there's that that hole in the head. Mac also has an image problem: “Mac knew he’d rather be a Bad Apple with Will than a sad apple without him,” which compromises the whole notion of the beauty of friendship. He’s not a bad apple, he’s a good apple, uncontaminated by the pesticide of a culture that tells us only the glossily unblemished are worth a hoot.
A mixed message shopped in a queasy jacket. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25191-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A funny David-versus-Goliath story with a one-word question serving as the slingshot. (Picture book. 3-5)
Doctor X-Ray, a megalomaniac with an X-ray blaster and an indestructible battle suit, crashes through the ceiling of the local mall.
Innocent patrons scatter to safety. But one curious child gazes directly at the bully and asks: “Why?” At first, Doctor X-Ray answers with all the menace and swagger of a supervillain. The curious child, armed with only a stuffed bear and clad in a bright red dress, is not satisfied with the answers and continues asking: “Why?” As his pale cheeks flush with emotion, Doctor X-Ray peels back the onion of his interior life, unearthing powerful reasons behind his pursuit of tyranny. This all sounds heavy, but the humorously monotonous questions coupled with free-wheeling illustrations by Keane set a quick pace with comical results. At 60 pages, the book has room to follow this thread back to the diabolical bully’s childhood. Most of the answers go beyond a child’s understanding—parental entertainment between the howl of the monosyllabic chorus. It is the digital artwork, which is reminiscent of Quentin Blake’s, that creates a joyful undercurrent of rebellion with bold and loose brush strokes, patches of color, and expressive faces. The illustrations harken to a previous era save for the thoroughly liberated Asian child speaking truth to power.
A funny David-versus-Goliath story with a one-word question serving as the slingshot. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6863-0
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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