Never mind far away, keep this collection close by.
A sumptuous multicultural collection of nursery rhymes includes art by over 70 illustrators.
The diversity of illustration styles and subjects coincides nicely with the diversity of rhymes, which refreshingly move beyond Anglophone origins. Hammill’s skills as collector are especially sharp in juxtaposing cultural variants of rhymes—for example, a spread with the English Little Miss Muffet includes the Jamaican Lickle Muss Julie, the American Little Miss Tuckett and the Australian Little Miss Muffet, who gets frightened away by a pugnacious wombat rather than a spider. Also pleasing are inspired rhyme pairings. Isn’t it fitting that naughty Georgie Porgie is on a page facing one devoted to the sometimes-horrid little girl with a curl? Or that the tongue twisters about Betty Botter and Peter Piper share a double-page spread? Or that Yankee Doodle and the grand old Duke of York face each other, too? It’s also delightful to see rhymes including oft-omitted stanzas, including five in all for a not-so-little Bo Peep. Illustration highlights include: Emily Gravett’s delicious, posterlike rendering of six-and-twenty mice alphabetically indulging in apple pie; Nina Crews’ delectable photomontage illustrations for a variety of food-related rhymes; Robert Ingpen’s gorgeous interpretation of “The lion and the unicorn”; and in a callback to his Caldecott Honor, Jerry Pinkney’s interpretation of Brother Noah who built the ark.
Never mind far away, keep this collection close by. (Poetry. 1-8)Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7729-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Wow.
The stories of the births of the universe, the planet Earth, and a human child are told in this picture book.
Bauer begins with cosmic nothing: “In the dark / in the deep, deep dark / a speck floated / invisible as thought / weighty as God.” Her powerful words build the story of the creation of the universe, presenting the science in poetic free verse. First, the narrative tells of the creation of stars by the Big Bang, then the explosions of some of those stars, from which dust becomes the matter that coalesces into planets, then the creation of life on Earth: a “lucky planet…neither too far / nor too near…its yellow star…the Sun.” Holmes’ digitally assembled hand-marbled paper-collage illustrations perfectly pair with the text—in fact the words and illustrations become an inseparable whole, as together they both delineate and suggest—the former telling the story and the latter, with their swirling colors suggestive of vast cosmos, contributing the atmosphere. It’s a stunning achievement to present to readers the factual events that created the birth of the universe, the planet Earth, and life on Earth with such an expressive, powerful creativity of words paired with illustrations so evocative of the awe and magic of the cosmos. But then the story goes one brilliant step further and gives the birth of a child the same beginning, the same sense of magic, the same miracle.
Wow. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7883-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
A sweet and quiet homage to friendship, nature, and the power of words and poetry.
A little girl enjoys writing poems and gets an unexpected surprise when she writes a poem and gives it to a tree, making “the world more splendid."
Sylvia marks the end of winter with a poem about springtime. After reading it to a squirrel, she ties it to a tree (“hoping that it didn’t count as littering”). When she passes the tree on her way to school the next day, she finds a surprise—another poem on the tree. “She never imagined the tree might write back.” Sylvia continues to write poems to the tree and waits to find the next poem. When she realizes a teasing classmate, Walt, is the author of the other poems, she is sad: “Had the tree she loved so much not given her a thing?” Not too unsurprisingly, the two poets become friends, harmoniously trading rhymes beneath the tree that has brought them together. Using precise, intelligent prose, Reynolds captures moments of a child’s innocence: “ ‘So what’s your name?’ Sylvia asked the tree. But the tree stood in silence. ‘Are you shy like me?’ The tree nodded in the breeze. Sylvia understood.” Maydani’s delicate, pencil-and-watercolor paintings, suffused with spring pastels, affectionately invest Sylvia (who has brown skin), Walt (who presents white), and even the tree with personality.
A sweet and quiet homage to friendship, nature, and the power of words and poetry. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-53912-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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