This delightful story is a feast for the eyes and ears, and it will hold up well to repeated demands from eager young...
Friendship blossoms between canine and rodent in this paean to the sheer joy of being alive.
A greyhound and a groundhog are startled to meet, one waking from a nap and the other popping out of a burrow. Before long, however, they are frolicking together, romping about and running through meadows before finally collapsing in satisfied fatigue. Jenkins’ playful text (“A round hound, a grey dog, a round little hound dog. / A greyhog, a ground dog, a hog little hound dog”) has a catchy rhythm that begs to be read out loud. The text dances across the page, perfectly in sync with the watercolor pictures; on one page the line “and a sound” hovers beside the splash created by the greyhound’s foot, its curvature visually echoing the arc of the water. By varying perspective and distance, Appelhans creates dynamic, high-energy illustrations that maintain interest despite featuring only two characters against a plain, minimalist background. Readers look down on the two friends from above as they spin in giddy circles and see them in comical close-up as a butterfly flits past. Groundhog bursts from the end of a hollow log, paws outstretched, about to soar above the heads of readers, who have a ground-level view of the action.
This delightful story is a feast for the eyes and ears, and it will hold up well to repeated demands from eager young listeners. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-49805-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Good for a giggle from preschool readers despite its slight imperfections.
A brightly illustrated story told in rhyme about mixed-up robots getting ready for the day.
Holub and Dickason team up for another title echoing the style of their similarly formatted Hello Knights! and Hello Ninjas! (both 2018). Here, the titular robots are having trouble getting ready for the day. They put socks on top of shoes and even forget how to eat their cereal, pouring milk on their heads and flipping their bowls upside down on the table. The confusion comes to a climax in a double gatefold in which the robots realize that they need a reboot, correcting their routines. Young readers will delight in the silliness: underpants on heads, bathing in clothes. Holub’s rhyming text works well for the most part and includes some charming turns of phrase, such as “brushing bolts” in place of brushing teeth. Dickason’s illustrations use a consistent palette of mostly primary colors and feature 1960s-style robots drawn with antennae, motherboards on boxy chests, and wheels for feet. The pages are busy and packed, allowing for new discoveries upon each read, though this busyness argues for use with older toddlers. It’s not entirely clear where the robots are headed (school?) or whether or not they’re also ETs (they fly away on a spaceship), but the story is fun enough to overlook those muddled details.
Good for a giggle from preschool readers despite its slight imperfections. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1871-4
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
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A perennial read that radiates summer’s heady glee.
Summer’s smells, sounds, rhythms, and rituals unspool luxuriantly in this tribute to the season when “days stretch out like a slow yawn,” when “bumblebees bumble,” and “every day is like a Saturday.”
An elementary school–age boy with light-brown skin and a shock of dark hair giddily greets summer’s markers: the final day of class, a lemonade stand, neighborhood hide-and-seek, July 4th parade and fireworks, camping and cooling off at a lake. He relishes summer’s free-wheeling ease alongside a swirling pack of friends, a group of children with delightfully ambiguous skin tones—tan, taupe, medium brown, dark brown—but all scarlet-cheeked from sunny afternoons. In gleeful acrylic illustrations, their eyes crinkle and pop with joy, their arms fly skyward, their legs extend midstride. These exuberant motions and feelings, uncomplicated but deeply understood by children, appear atop soft summer scenes in gauzy greens and cotton whites. Looking at these fantastic freeze-frames of fun, young readers see their desire to halt time during summer months fulfilled. Hearing lush phrases that capture summer’s ethos (“daylight pushes back bedtimes, and crickets crick-crick in the evening air”), they can almost smell freshly mown lawns and taste campfire s’mores.
A perennial read that radiates summer’s heady glee. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6071-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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