Exquisite, electrifying, soothing, and soporific, brilliant in color and execution, this book beams.
Addy spots the moon as she leaves her city play date and marvels as it follows her all the way back to her country home.
Cut-paper collages construct both urban and woodsy landscapes that throb with vitality. The papers (marbled, speckled, dotted, in floral and geometric designs) cohere effortlessly, creating wonderfully intoxicating illustrations. Their patterns undulate and swirl, producing roiling energy that describes both a city neighborhood humming with strollers, scooters, dogs, and skipping children as well as a windswept, buggy nighttime car ride back home to the country. Children will dote on details nestled in each illustration: flashy feathers on a blackbird’s wing, apartment tenants perched in their windows, folds and patterns in clothing, the arch of a boat’s sail. The moon remains ever present, popping up in different sizes, hues, quadrants of the sky. Breathtaking double-page spreads (in unabashed pinks, purples, and blues) show the moon duplicated, reflected, and enlarged across expanses of sky. Readers, like Addy, feel tethered to Pearle’s moon and to her masterful pictures that manage to communicate the comforting reciprocity found in its presence. Back home, under a gigantic pulsing-pink moon, Addy understands, “It waits and watches over me, / always.
Exquisite, electrifying, soothing, and soporific, brilliant in color and execution, this book beams. (Picture book. 2-8)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8037-4054-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A syrupy tribute to mothers that may please fans of the series.
Another creature is on the loose.
The long-running series continues its successful formula with this Hallmark card of a book, which features bright illustrations and catchy rhymes. This time, the mythical creature the racially diverse children set out to catch is an absent mom who does it all (lists of descriptors include the words banker, caregiver, nurse, doctor, driver, chef, housekeeper, teacher, entertainer, playmate, laundry service, problem solver, handywoman, cleaner, and alarm clock) but doesn’t seem to have a job outside the home and is inexplicably a dinosaur. As the children prepare gifts and a meal for her, the text becomes an ode to the skills the Mamasaurus possesses (“Day or night she’s always there. / She meets every wish and need”) and values she instills (“Sometimes life can mean hard work,” “kindness matters,” and “what counts is doing your best”). This well-intentioned selection veers into cliche generously sprinkled with saccharine but manages to redeem itself with its appreciation for mothers and all that they may do. Endpapers include a “to” and “from” page framed in a heart, as well as a page where young gift givers or recipients can draw a picture of their Mamasaurus.
A syrupy tribute to mothers that may please fans of the series. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781728274300
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
So sweet it’ll have readers heading for their toothbrushes.
Another entry in the how-much-I-love-you genre.
The opening spread shows a blue elephant-and-child pair, the child atop the adult, white hearts arcing between their uplifted trunks: “You’re a gift and a blessing in every way. / I love you more each and every day.” From there, the adult elephant goes on to tell the child how they are loved more than all sorts of things, some rhyming better than others: “I love you more than all the spaghetti served in Rome, // and more than each and every dog loves her bone.” More than stars, fireflies, “all the languages spoken in the world,” “all the dancers that have ever twirled,” all the kisses ever given and miles ever driven, “all the adventures you have ahead,” and “all the peanut butter and jelly spread on bread!” Representative of all the world’s languages are “I love you” in several languages (with no pronunciation help): English, Sioux, French, German, Swahili, Spanish, Hawaiian, Chinese, and Arabic (these two last in Roman characters only). Bold colors and simple illustrations with no distracting details keep readers’ focus on the main ideas. Dashed lines give the artwork (and at least one word on every spread) the look of 2-D sewn toys.
So sweet it’ll have readers heading for their toothbrushes. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8398-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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