Young readers should sympathize with the compassionate heroine, and perhaps start to feel empathy for others.
An alien detective and his elephant friends return in this second issue-based adventure for grade schoolers, filled with brightly colored photographs of puppet characters.
Ellie Elephant summons Splunkunio Splunkey, her alien friend who is a detective and peacemaker, because there is trouble at school that she doesn’t know how to handle. She explains that a new student is causing problems: “Big Bully Holly Howler. Nobody likes her!” Holly, a purple hippo, is taller than the other puppets: a long-haired zebra named Zena, Ellie and her friend Eli Elephant, a curly-haired lioness, and a pink hoodie-wearing tiger. Holly’s rude, cutting in line and stealing the basketball at recess. She swipes Ellie’s apple for their teacher, and pushes down Zena to take her wagon. Ellie and Eli rattle off a list of Holly’s wrongs, and young readers are likely to think that it’s clear why Holly doesn’t have any friends: she’s just not nice. But Splunkunio refuses to settle for the easy answer. He asks whether Holly acts badly to everyone, and wants to know whether she spends time with other students. When Ellie insists she must have friends somewhere, Splunkunio says, “Not everyone does. Especially people who act like bullies.” The alien urges the friends to treat Holly considerately, even if they continue to dislike her, then vanishes, assuring them they can handle this crisis on their own. Sure enough, when Ellie reaches out to Holly with kindness, everything changes. While this might not be a strategy that works with every bully, the messages in Ashley’s (Splunkunio Splunkey, 2005) tale that generosity can open doors to healing and that loneliness, rather than meanness, can cause kids to lash out remain welcome steps toward empathy. As Ellie learns to look at the world from another’s perspective, young audiences may follow suit. The author’s quirky photographs will either immediately connect with kids or feel too strange to relate to. The puppets are placed in stiff positions, frequently free-standing, sometimes in repeated poses, in a low-background house and a busy schoolroom.
Young readers should sympathize with the compassionate heroine, and perhaps start to feel empathy for others.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4808-2218-4
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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