A gently surreal tale of a boy who must sift through throngs of abandoned fathers while on the hunt for his own.
The worst feeling? You’re sitting at the breakfast table coloring and you realize you’ve misplaced your dad. In this tale, a boy’s search takes him to the Bureau of Misplaced Dads. The director informs the kid that “at least 20 or 30 dads wander in every day,” including striped-sweater dads, weeping dads, and even a couple that have been released back into the wild (this “wild” is just outside the bureau’s back door). When offered an array of adoptable dads, the boy is tempted. Fortunately, now he is able to remember where his own father may be. The word “misplaced” sets the right tone, clarifying early on that the boy will certainly find the right papa. The whimsically deadpan art keeps the tale upbeat, contrasting the wide array of hopeful, physically dissimilar dads against one another. Sadly, the book is not without the occasional creepy moment, like the leering dad lurking in a cardboard box with a knife and fork in hand. Still, it’s hard not to be charmed by the dads on display, including a “dad who always looks like he’s just gotten out of bed” and a “dad from Strasbourg, wearing his daughter’s bonnet,” among others.
Readers may leave this book wishing their own parental units might be “misplaced,” if only so that they can visit this bureau. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77138-238-0
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
This Is Us actor Metz and her partner, songwriter Collins, present a rhyming children’s book about prayer and parental love.
“When I talk to God, guess what I do? / It’s really quite simple: I talk about you.” Fields’ pencil and digital illustrations show different parent-child animal pairs throughout, from bears to otters to skunks, ducks, deer, and more. But from this auspicious beginning, the authors’ point of view and direct address to “you,” the child, makes the majority of the pages seem like affirmations of what they love about their child and not what the parent actually prays for. Adults reading this aloud may see this as a prayer of thanksgiving for their child’s gifts and qualities, but little listeners will not make that connection. In the final pages, the parent tells the child that they can talk to God, too, and that God is always by their side. The last spread states, “You’re my sweetest prayer.” While the individual parts are sweet and affirming of a parent’s love and pride in their child, the sum of those parts isn’t what’s advertised in the title and repetitive refrain “When I talk to God, / I talk about you.” The gentle artwork in soft colors anthropomorphizes the animals’ facial expressions to make their loving relationships clear. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Stick to separate books about parental love and prayer instead. (Religious picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-52524-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION
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