Active and artistic young girls are not unknown in picture books, but Camille certainly makes herself heard among the others...
A free-spirited girl celebrates the morning in so many ways.
Camille arises on Sunday morning and “puts on her / battledress: a / tutu and a top hat.” She jumps on her bed, eats two pages’ worth of cherries (“loads and loads”) and then follows up with even more unconventional activities, such as giving names to the ocean’s waves and listening to a story told by the wind. She also decorates a huge number of balloons, melts an oversize ice cream cone and selects a “new favorite color” (pale yellow). Camille also has a map left over from the days of colonial Africa, which she adorns with men in top hats. Her whimsical dreams are finally interrupted by her mother, who is outside her bedroom and admonishes her to behave—for the second time. Written and illustrated by a Spanish duo, this small volume presents a very nontraditional sensibility with a graphic design that is similar to Aguilar’s fabric designs. Free-form black lines and shapes suggest objects rather than depict them. The color palette, in muted tones, is quite different from the typical, brightly rendered digital efforts in many picture books published recently.
Active and artistic young girls are not unknown in picture books, but Camille certainly makes herself heard among the others in the pantheon. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2407-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
An entertaining, if light, addition to the growing shelf of celebrity-authored picture books.
Actor and author Witherspoon makes her picture-book debut.
Betty, a light-skinned, bespectacled child with blond pigtails, was born busy. Constantly in motion, Betty builds big block towers, cartwheels around the house (underfoot, of course), and plays with the family’s “fantabulous” dog, Frank, who is stinky and dirty. That leads to a big, busy, bright idea that, predictably, caroms toward calamity yet drags along enough hilarity to be entertaining. With a little help from best friend Mae (light-skinned with dark hair), the catastrophe turns into a lucrative dog-washing business. Busy Betty is once again ready to rush off to the next big thing. Yan uses vivid, pastel colors for a spread of a group of diverse kids bringing their dogs to be washed, helping out, and having fun, while the grown-ups are muted and relegated to the background. Extreme angles in several of the illustrations effectively convey a sense of perpetual motion and heighten the story’s tension, drawing readers in. An especially effective, glitter-strewn spread portrays Frank looming large and seemingly running off the page while Betty looks on, stricken at the ensuing mess. Though it’s a familiar and easily resolved story, Witherspoon’s rollicking text never holds back, replete with amusing phrases such as “sweet cinnamon biscuits,” “bouncing biscuits,” and “busted biscuits.” As Betty says, “Being busy is a great way to be.” Young readers are sure to agree. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An entertaining, if light, addition to the growing shelf of celebrity-authored picture books. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-46588-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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