Delicately crafted, impressionistic hope.
A dedicated search for the light, even in the darkest of times, leads one character back home.
A child appears, seemingly nascent with the light, nude and frolicking. Donning a yellow rain hat, blue coat, and red galoshes (reminiscent of Paddington Bear), the industrious child sets out with a wheelbarrow full of assorted tools to chase the sun across village streets, pastures, and hills. Together with a goose and cat companions, the child tries to catch the sun’s bright rays. Dropping items as they progress, they reach the shore with only a small butterfly net just as the sun sinks below the watery horizon. Doggedly carrying on, the child briefly swims naked with the goose under the nighttime waves before they wash back to shore. A starry elephant appears with a lantern in its trunk, carrying the child back home as the sun rises. McDonnell’s minimalist text, with sentences stretched over several pages, conveys only the most general information, developing an atmospheric tale with layered meanings. One can metaphorically read an emotional journey of a sad, “dark” spot in life, emerging into “light,” happy times. Regardless, “hope” carries readers into a new dawn in the circular theme. Vast but simply designed landscapes dominate the wide pages with thick brush strokes and sweeping colors. The dark scenes are so saturated that readers may have to squint to make both them and the text out, a narratively appropriate feature. Conversely, the light scenes burst off the pages.
Delicately crafted, impressionistic hope. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-500-65195-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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