A Jewish holiday mixes it up with a favorite fairy tale.
A Hanukkah culinary delight saves Little Red Riding Hood’s literary, Jewish cousin.
Winter chills cannot keep Ruthie from her Hanukkah visit to Bubbe Basha’s house to cook latkes. She dons her red-hooded puff jacket, fills her basket with the perfect culinary accompaniments—sour cream and applesauce—and sets out through the forest for her grandmother’s house. To no one’s surprise, except hers, she walks straight into a wolf who is hungry for Ruthie. Determined to be as brave as the Maccabees, Ruthie proceeds to talk her way out of the wolf’s mouth. If he gives her just eight days, (as long as Hanukkah lasts), her skinny white self will fill out. The wolf cannot wait and sets out for Bubbe’s house. She is not home, but the wolf entertains himself by dressing up in her fancy clothing. When Ruthie arrives, she is able to read the note on the door (which the wolf could not), saying that Bubbe will return soon. Alone with the wolf, Ruthie combines frying the latkes with telling the impatient predator the story of the holiday. Eating so many fried potatoes, even if delicious, deters the wolf from his original scheme. Digital art, with red predominating, is an entertaining accompaniment.
A Jewish holiday mixes it up with a favorite fairy tale. (recipe) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8075-4646-8
Page Count: 37
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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