Masterful artwork and nuanced verse invite readers to hold their breath and dive deep. (Picture book. 6-10)
Sophia knows all the sea’s secrets (its “dragons,” “floating forests,” “clowns,” “angels,” and “four-eyed butterflies”), and she invites readers to follow her deep underwater to discover what lies full fathom five.
Kaleidoscopic illustrations teem with cerulean colors, shifting shapes, and swirling patterns, evoking oceanic fantasies filled with mysterious sea creatures, treasure, magic, and transformations. Sophia’s ebony hair drifts with the current, her porcelain skin glows, and her calm voice coaxes readers down, down, down, where “tentacles, / antennae and teeth disappear into / darknesss…and an abyss becomes / a bottomless pit of possibilities….” Readers feel woozily enchanted by this little snow-white siren and the myriad underwater miracles as they descend. Shafts of white space, often highlighting the narrative verse, administer welcome breaths of air amid a density of fish and flotsam. Luxbacher’s graphite, watercolor, and acrylic illustrations (composed digitally, printed using archival inks and papers, then enhanced with soft-colored pencil and found collage materials) offer opportunity for interpretation and pleasurable scrutiny. Why and how is a little bird trailing Sophia all the way to the ocean’s floor? Who is Sophia’s reassuring mermaid twin? Readers ride waves of wonder all the way back to dry land, where they find Sophia snuggled in bed with her mother.
Masterful artwork and nuanced verse invite readers to hold their breath and dive deep. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77306-014-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Charming.
An assortment of unusual characters form friendships and help each other become their best selves.
Mr. and Mrs. Tupper, who live at Number 3 Ramshorn Drive, are antiquarians. Their daughter, Jillian, loves and cares for a plant named Ivy, who has “three speckles on each leaf and three letters in her name.” Toasty, the grumpy goldfish, lives in an octagonal tank and wishes he were Jillian’s favorite; when Arthur the spider arrives inside an antique desk, he brings wisdom and insight. Ollie the violet plant, Louise the bee, and Sunny the canary each arrive with their own quirks and problems to solve. Each character has a distinct personality and perspective; sometimes they clash, but more often they learn to empathize, see each other’s points of view, and work to help one another. They also help the Tupper family with bills and a burglar. The Fan brothers’ soft-edged, old-fashioned, black-and-white illustrations depict Toasty and Arthur with tiny hats; Ivy and Ollie have facial expressions on their plant pots. The Tuppers have paper-white skin and dark hair. The story comes together like a recipe: Simple ingredients combine, transform, and rise into something wonderful. In its matter-of-fact wisdom, rich vocabulary (often defined within the text), hint of magic, and empathetic nonhuman characters who solve problems in creative ways, this delightful work is reminiscent of Ferris by Kate DiCamillo, Our Friend Hedgehog by Lauren Castillo, and Ivy Lost and Found by Cynthia Lord and Stephanie Graegin.
Charming. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781665942485
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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