School is over for the day, and energetic Norwegian preschooler Gracie thinks she and Grandma are going home, but—surprise! They are going swimming instead. The ingenuous third-person narration charts the adventure, Gracie’s ebullience occasionally veering toward impatience or truculence but always calmly countered by Grandma’s savvy. The everyday elements of a trip to the pool—the changing room, retrieving forgotten equipment, the pre-swim shower and post-swim sauna (this is Norway, after all) and the swim itself are enlivened by Gracie’s imaginative play and Grandma’s easygoing way with her granddaughter. The broadly cartoonish images nicely capture Gracie’s liveliness; she’s depicted as a toothily-grinning, ponytailed tot whose face transforms with anxiety or desire to a larger-than-life version of herself—and just as quickly morphs back as her mood changes. The broad black lines against white background are judiciously colored to reinforce this effect. This import is the second in a series of four. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9790347-4-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: MacKenzie Smiles
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2008
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A brother and sister participate in their Tae Kwon Do class in a most welcome addition to the Step into Reading series. This level-one title sports predominantly one-syllable, short vowel words in two-to-four-word sentences. Spirited images and mainly well-chosen action words in rhyme will hook little boys: “We count. We yell. We all kick well.” But the multicultural, coed students portrayed here, and the apparent accuracy of belt colors and class content, widen the applications. Bonita’s illustrations depict cheerful, cartoonish kids with shiny button noses, impossibly pudgy feet and thighs like enrobed sausages, but the sparring, jabbing and block-busting yield a sure hit. Parents, teachers and librarians desperate for first-level, child-appealing readers will cheer out loud—and quite possibly execute a few joyous spinning kicks of their own—as they snap this one up. (Easy reader. 3-5)
Pub Date: April 25, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83448-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
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