While a goodnight book needn’t—shouldn’t—be stimulating or exciting, the market is so saturated with such reading material...
A collection of rhymes for the very young falls smack in the middle of twee territory.
Prelutsky’s simple, consistent rhymes could prove pleasing to sleepy ears, but accompanying digital art by Ishida adds little to the collection. Many of the rhymes list various creatures or items, and the illustrations prove reiterative of the text, failing to build upon them to create something new. Granted, the redundancy between art and text could provoke something of an I Spy sort of game, prompting readers to point to those things named in the text, but page after page without an overriding sense of cohesion reads like a missed opportunity. Added to this flaw is the saccharine sensibility of the collection, populated by round, planar forms in soft colors that accompany rhyme after rhyme, each concluding with go-to-sleep messages. Backmatter includes sheet music for four of the lullaby rhymes, which is a nice added touch to a book that otherwise seems rather undistinguished.
While a goodnight book needn’t—shouldn’t—be stimulating or exciting, the market is so saturated with such reading material that new titles need to add something special to rise above the rest: This doesn’t. (Picture book. 0-3)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-201467-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Affecting and hopeful.
A stray dog finds her destiny amid the chaos of a Southern California wildfire.
Wombat is a small dog with stubby legs and “silly ears / that look like furry cookies”—almost impossibly cute in Bricking’s occasional pencil-style vignettes. She’s mastered the art of survival, so when a mysterious internal voice prods her to go toward the fire, she resists. “The wrong way is the right way. / The right way is the wrong way,” the voice insists. When she tells fellow stray Silas about it, he tells Wombat she’s a “destiny dog,” bound to “find their person / before their person / can find them.” Convinced, she decides to follow the mysterious instructions. Meanwhile, Henry, a boy who’s leery of dogs, loves the bats at the wildlife rehabilitation center where Mama Ro, a veterinarian, works; his Mama J is a librarian. Henry and Barnabas, a fruit bat at the center, are both uprooted by the fire, and their paths converge with Wombat’s at an emergency shelter. The third-person perspective shifts from character to character in clusters of free-verse poems that fully immerse readers in each one’s experiences in turn. This extra-concentrated delivery of Applegate’s typically spare writing proves effective, balancing terror and sadness with heart and humor. Henry has light brown skin, Mama Ro has curly black hair and brown skin, and Mama J presents white.
Affecting and hopeful. (Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063221178
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Storytide/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history.
In spare verse, Lowry reflects on moments in her childhood, including the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
When she was a child, Lowry played at Waikiki Beach with her grandmother while her father filmed. In the old home movie, the USS Arizona appears through the mist on the horizon. Looking back at her childhood in Hawaii and then Japan, Lowry reflects on the bombings that began and ended a war and how they affected and connected everyone involved. In Part 1, she shares the lives and actions of sailors at Pearl Harbor. Part 2 is stories of civilians in Hiroshima affected by the bombing. Part 3 presents her own experience as an American in Japan shortly after the war ended. The poems bring the haunting human scale of war to the forefront, like the Christmas cards a sailor sent days before he died or the 4-year-old who was buried with his red tricycle after Hiroshima. All the personal stories—of sailors, civilians, and Lowry herself—are grounding. There is heartbreak and hope, reminding readers to reflect on the past to create a more peaceful future. Lowry uses a variety of poetry styles, identifying some, such as triolet and haiku. Pak’s graphite illustrations are like still shots of history, adding to the emotion and somber feeling. He includes some sailors of color among the mostly white U.S. forces; Lowry is white.
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history. (author’s note, bibliography) (Memoir/poetry. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-12940-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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