The folks from The Pickle Patch Bathtub (2004) are back for another reunion at Grandpapa and Grandmama’s. As people pack up to go home, Grandpapa announces that he and Grandmama will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary when the apple orchard (that they had planted) is ripe with fruit. He requests that one of his grandchildren recite a poem for Grandmama that will make him proud. Donna’s sure it will be her, but the hard part is choosing the right poem. She settles on “The Owl and the Pussycat” and practices everywhere she goes. But her boastful cousin, John picks the same poem. In a pickle, Donna searches for another poem and finds it. At the anniversary party, John recites the Lear rhyme, but it’s Donna’s recitation of “The Planting of the Apple Tree” by William Cullen Bryant that is the “just-right, perfect present.” Rich in lemon/lime undertones, the oil/acrylic collages match the old-fashioned, folksy feeling of the text. An engaging peek at family life in earlier days when grandkids begged to gather eggs and poetry was as good a gift as a ribbon-tied package. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58246-199-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
At her best, Rylant’s (The Ticky-Tacky Doll, below, etc.) sweetness and sentiment fills the heart; in this outing, however, sentimentality reigns and the end result is pretty gooey. Pandora keeps a lighthouse: her destiny is to protect ships at sea. She’s lonely, but loves her work. She rescues Seabold and heals his broken leg, and he stays on to mend his shipwrecked boat. This wouldn’t be so bad but Pandora’s a cat and Seabold a dog, although they are anthropomorphized to the max. Then the duo rescue three siblings—mice!—and make a family together, although Rylant is careful to note that Pandora and Seabold each have their own room. Choosing what you love, caring for others, making a family out of love, it is all very well, but this capsizes into silliness. Formatted to look like the start of a new series. Oh, dear. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-84880-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
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