Visually stunning, and meta, sorta, but ultimately discordant.
Simler (Plume, 2017) presents a seemingly guileless visual inventory of nature’s minutiae, but a spider’s surreptitious, side-by-side activity conveys a more mysterious subtext in this French import.
“In nature there is much to see, if you look closely.” A stylized oceanside scene—trees and flowers in the foreground, boats sailing, gulls flying, a shark swimming—seems idyllic enough. “You may find… / …leaves, / catkins and seeds,” and so much more. Simler invites readers to pore over exquisitely rendered natural elements, including multiple spreads of insects. Each creature, flower, or thorny stem appears against white space on the left, labeled with its common name. Each right-hand page features a close-up of the spider—often glimpsed only in part—interacting with one or more of these objects or critters. She’s making off with a fern frond, an emerald-hued shield bug, an acorn cap, even some pebbles—but why? The puzzle’s solved as Simler reveals “a web, / and a skillful, watchful artist… / …weaving a delicate masterpiece.” Readers see each captured element suspended in the web, carefully arrayed to replicate the seascape introduced at the outset. A thorn’s the shark’s fin; nutshells stuck with feathers are sailboats. The allegorical denouement (the spider’s an “artist” rather than a predatory arachnid) feels manipulative, counteracting the relative verisimilitude with which Simler approaches her natural catalog.
Visually stunning, and meta, sorta, but ultimately discordant. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4413-2843-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Peter Pauper Press
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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