Bunting’s Little Badger is as sweet and good as they come, and it is to her credit that the wee beast doesn’t dissolve into a saccharine puddle, despite a push in that direction from Pham, who has a fondness for Disneyesque doe eyes and shy glances. Old Badger (Can You Do This, Old Badger?, 2000, etc.) treats Little Badger to a just-about birthday party. Little Badger delivers the invitations (along with those shy glances) to her friends Woodchuck, Crow, and Chipmunk. They appear at the clearing bearing gifts: a chafer grub, a green acorn, and a moonstone. As they sit around chatting and snacking on crimped worms, it is discovered that each of the partygoers is “just about” to have a birthday. Little Badger decides that “each of you must take home one of my presents.” And they do, after some minor resistance and an assurance that all Little Badger needs is the big, bristly, dry-as-dirt pine cone given to him by Old Badger—and for Old Badger, the bluebell that Little Badger tucked behind his ear at the party. A thoughtful example of generosity, an unbroken circle of giving and taking, and, when she’s not being coy, richly atmospheric illustrations. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-202609-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
As brilliant as can be.
A sun, a flower, and a lion. They look similar, no?
Introduced in a wordless panel before the title page, the three figures bear at least two shapes in common. They’re also the same combination of warm yellow and (somehow just as warm) white, outlined in thick black line that pops against the muted yellow background. The text, divided into six short chapters, goes on to introduce the figures in isolation: “This is the sun. / Can you see it?” the narrator asks before going on to proclaim that the sun “is as bright as a flower.” When the flower is introduced, it’s compared to a lion. The lion? He isn’t compared to anything but instead smells the flower and warms himself in the sun. In the next chapter, the lion dreams that the flowers are sun-sized cookies. He wakes up hungry and runs home as fast as he can. Can readers spot him on the page? Using a vocabulary of fewer than 60 words and their variants—and a visual vocabulary of even fewer shapes and colors—Henkes creates an impeccably designed story that’s rewarding for toddlers and early readers alike. The repetitive structure and tone call to mind the playful simplicity of Mem Fox and Judy Horacek’s Where Is the Green Sheep? (2004). With imagination at its center, this participatory read-aloud also cleverly introduces the concept of simile (“It looks like a lion”) and metaphor (“The flowers are cookies”).
As brilliant as can be. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-286610-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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