Maggie is an easy-to-love kid. She is, it turns out, the very model of a loving and loved sister.
A young girl learns that the things that drive us crazy about our loved ones are often the things that make them wonderful in this well-designed lesson on sibling appreciation.
The bookish, tidy narrator tells readers about Maggie, her messy, adventurous, center-of-attention little sister, whom she insists is "not like other sisters!" Maggie, a firecracker with freckles, red hair and a talent for making silly faces, is also generous, attentive when her sister's sad, and brave on scary, dark nights. By bedtime, older sis has come to appreciate Maggie: "And every night we climb in bed. / While stars are dancing overhead. / Then in my ear, she whispers this: / 'I love you lots and lots, big sis!' " The illustrations throughout are crisp, colorful and filled with eye-catching background detail. Animations, especially of canine companion Pugsley, are simple and just-enough. Navigation is almost completely absent. Page swipes are fluid; large white circles appear briefly to clue younger readers as to where they might find spots to touch to make the characters act; and big, helpful arrows prompt when it's time to move on. Interactions beyond the app include a link to a website where readers can share their own sister stories and a store filled with merchandise related to the app.
Maggie is an easy-to-love kid. She is, it turns out, the very model of a loving and loved sister. (iPad storybook app. 2-8)Pub Date: March 15, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Nabee Productions
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
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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Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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