Imaginative and poetically resonant.
When is it time to shed one’s fur?
Luxbacher offers a metaphor for the way past experience remains part of oneself. A young brown bear, fuzzy and big-eyed, plays in a sunlit forest, with spring green leaves and bright, slightly abstract flowers in bloom. “Once I lived in a forest of tall trees,” the narrator bear explains. “A bright circle in the sky”—the sun—gave shape to the day. “I was never afraid.” The full-color, edge-to-edge art is dreamy and gently whimsical. As the air grows colder, something happens: The little bear hibernates, dreams, and emerges in “a different kind of wilderness.” This new environment has a human adult, a house, tall buildings, a classroom where “a different circle”—a clock—tells when to rest and play. The bear’s classmates look like human children, but wild creatures in the same clothes hover over some of them. On the last page the small bear in a yellow shirt has become a human child with white skin and brown hair, playing with a child with brown skin and hair, and a bear and a deer play together in the background. The transformation is a bit abrupt but nevertheless rings metaphorically true, encouraging the appreciation of one’s own story and recognizing different experiences of loss and change. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 19.8% of actual size.)
Imaginative and poetically resonant. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35633-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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