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LALA'S WORDS

A STORY OF PLANTING KINDNESS

Lala’s enthusiasm blossoms on the page.

A small girl, full of energy and color, brings her love of nature to a dull gray city.

In the heat of the heavy, hot summer, everyone in a black-and-gray–hued city is still…except for Lala, in an effervescent yellow dress, who’s jumping, running, and tripping across the page. Her exasperated mother does not understand this whirlwind of energy, frowning at a floor covered in clutter or exclaiming about dirt tracked on the floor. Blithe Lala, however, loves nothing more than to visit an empty lot around the corner, where she tends to the weeds and scraggly plants—rendered in vibrant greens with yellow highlights—whom she considers friends. But on the hottest day of summer, when her mother finally forbids her to step foot outside, “Lala cried and cried. Who would visit her little friends?” She sends her love out to the plants in whispers all day, and the next morning, the neighborhood wakes to a miraculous sight. A giant green plant now covers the entire neighborhood with its shade! More importantly, Lala’s neighborhood now also glows the same bright yellow as Lala’s dress, and her mother recognizes her inner light. Zhang’s message extolling the benefits of tending to nature is a bit too on the nose, but her use of only two colors—yellow and green—against a gray city to convey the exuberance of Lala’s love and the rejuvenating force of nature is lovely. Lala and her mother both have straight, black hair and skin the white of the page.

Lala’s enthusiasm blossoms on the page. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: July 6, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-338-64823-2

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021

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ONE FAMILY

A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.

A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.

Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”

A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: May 26, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015

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GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU

POP-UP

The book is available in just about every format--but this is the perfect one.

It's hard to believe that a pop-up wasn't the creators' original intention, so seamlessly do moveable parts dovetail into this modern classic's storyline.

In contrast to the tale's 1998 pop -up version, the figures here move on every page, and with an unusually graceful naturalism to boot. From pulling down Big Nutbrown Hare's ears on the opening spread to make sure he's listening to drowsily turning his head to accept a final good-night kiss in a multi-leveled pull-down tableau at the close, all of Little Nutbrown Hare's hops, stretches and small gestures serve the poetically spare text—as do Big Nutbrown's wider, higher responses to his charge's challenges. As readers turn a flap to read Big Nutbrown's "But I love you this much," his arms extend to demonstrate. The emotional connection between the two hares is clearer than ever in Jeram's peaceful, restrained outdoor scenes, which are slightly larger than those in the trade edition, and the closing scene is made even more intimate by hiding the closing line ("I love you right up to the moon—and back") until an inconspicuous flap is opened up.  

The book is available in just about every format--but this is the perfect one. (Pop-up picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-7636-5378-1

Page Count: 16

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011

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