Dad and little Yvette spend a companionable day cleaning the house, baking a cake, and preparing a birthday party for ``a cat doctor''—a day punctuated with Yvette's eager questions and Dad's patient responses until at last the guest of honor appears. It's Mom, the vet, home from work just in time for the festivities. The simple story is deftly conveyed in natural- sounding dialogue. Trivas's colorful illustrations are lively and freely rendered (sometimes too freely, as in the case of one impossible clockface); with many cozy details, including the amusing antics of the family cats, they nicely reflect this black family's warm pleasure in each other's company. (Picture book. 3- 6)
Pub Date: March 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-8075-5771-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A pleasing poem that celebrates babies around the world. Whether from a remote village or an urban dwelling, a tent or the snow, Fox notes that each “of these babies, / as everyone knows, / had ten little fingers / and ten little toes.” Repeated in each stanza, the verse establishes an easy rhythm. Oxenbury’s charming illustrations depict infants from a variety of ethnicities wearing clothing that invokes a sense of place. Her pencil drawings, with clean watercolor washes laid in, are sweetly similar to those in her early board books (Clap Hands, 1987, etc.). Each stanza introduces a new pair of babies, and the illustrations cleverly incorporate the children from the previous stanzas onto one page, allowing readers to count not only fingers and toes but also babies. The last stanza switches its focus from two children to one “sweet little child,” and reveals the narrator as that baby’s mother. Little readers will take to the repetition and counting, while parents will be moved by the last spread: a sweet depiction of mother and baby. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-206057-2
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2008
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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The action of this rhymed and humorous tale centers upon a mouse who "took a stroll/through the deep dark wood./A fox saw the mouse/and the mouse looked good." The mouse escapes being eaten by telling the fox that he is on his way to meet his friend the gruffalo (a monster of his imagination), whose favorite food is roasted fox. The fox beats a hasty retreat. Similar escapes are in store for an owl and a snake; both hightail it when they learn the particulars: tusks, claws, terrible jaws, eyes orange, tongue black, purple prickles on its back. When the gruffalo suddenly materializes out of the mouse's head and into the forest, the mouse has to think quick, declaring himself inedible as the "scariest creature in the deep dark wood," and inviting the gruffalo to follow him to witness the effect he has on the other creatures. When the gruffalo hears that the mouse's favorite food is gruffalo crumble, he runs away. It's a fairly innocuous tale, with twists that aren't sharp enough and treachery that has no punch. Scheffler's funny scenes prevent the suspense from culminating; all his creatures, predator and prey, are downright lovable. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-2386-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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