This Dutch import’s fatuous ending falls short, but the illustrations are worth the time spent appreciating them. (Picture...
A small yellow octopus is nonplussed to return home from his daily swim to find someone else’s tale protruding from his home.
The soft and expressive illustrations done in acrylic and oil pastels by van Hout (Surprise, 2014, etc.) are the highlight of what could have been a noteworthy story about the pitfalls of jumping to conclusions. Flitting among his concerned friends, an endearingly expressive octopus searches for a solution to the very big intruder stuck in his doorway. The fishy suggestions run the gamut from “Chase him away!” to “Declare war on him.” As the story unfolds, the problem of what to do with the giant tail sticking out of Octopus’ home involves every sea creature in the neighborhood. After much deliberation, the little octopus hears whispered advice in the depths around him. “What would you do?” The sea seems to be urging him to listen to his intuition—which he does to his ultimate delight. Van Lieshout and van Os explore the extreme reactions fear and uncertainty can elicit. As is so often the case, a simple question could have prevented the escalating misunderstanding and turmoil. What makes the resolution unsatisfactory is that an entire scene seems to be missing—the reveal. One minute the friends struggle to pull out the mysterious tale à la “The Enormous Turnip,” and the next, there’s a smiling mermaid holding the besotted octopus. “ ‘Oh,’ Octopus blushed. ‘If I’d only known you were a lady! That’s different!’ ”
This Dutch import’s fatuous ending falls short, but the illustrations are worth the time spent appreciating them. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-9359-5439-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lemniscaat USA
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf.
A big, yellow hound dog has small, wonderful dreams.
Emma’s dreams are doggily simple. Rendered in gray, they manifest above her contentedly slumbering form: “singing, dancing, rolling in grass, splashing in water, going for walks,” and eating. After she wakes and eats, she naps again, sprawled on her back, tummy distended, the very picture of canine bliss. Pages turn, with Cooper’s lyrical text focusing on Emma and her sensations: “The days went on, shifting and taking shape, and now there were times when her whole body felt strange, but there was no stopping the days.” A gently curving line of overlapping Emmas, rising, stretching, scratching, shifting, and resettling, underscores time’s march. Adult readers may be anxious at this point, fearing Emma’s impending death with the page turn—but no, it turns out Emma’s been literally full of wonders, and she gazes mildly at a puppy emerging from her own body. Then there they are, seven little Emmas, and they now embody her dreams. Cooper’s brushy, loose watercolors, outlined in swoops of ink, complement his Emma-focused text. She resides in a human home, but her owner appears only as tan-skinned hands extending from the margin to offer a bowl of food, caress her snout, or towel off a pup. In this way, Cooper invites readers into Emma’s interiority, allowing them to sit quietly and wonder with her.
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884763
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history.
A sonorous, soporific invitation to join woodland creatures in bedding down for the night.
As in her Moon Babies, illustrated by Amy Hevron (2019), Jameson displays a rare gift for harmonious language and rhyme. She leads off with a bear: “Come home, Big Paws. / Berry picker / Honey trickster / Shadows deepen in the glen. / Lumber back inside your den.” Continuing in the same pattern, she urges a moose (“Velvet Nose”), a deer (“Tiny Hooves”), and a succession of ever smaller creatures to find their nooks and nests as twilight deepens in Boutavant’s woodsy, autumnal scenes and snow begins to drift down. Through each of those scenes quietly walks an alert White child (accompanied by an unusually self-controlled pooch), peering through branches or over rocks at the animals in the foregrounds and sketching them in a notebook. The observer’s turn comes round at last, as a bearded parent beckons: “This way, Small Boots. / Brave trailblazer / Bright stargazer / Cabin’s toasty. Blanket’s soft. / Snuggle deep in sleeping loft.” The animals go unnamed, leaving it to younger listeners to identify each one from the pictures…if they can do so before the verses’ murmurous tempo closes their eyes.
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7063-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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