Better bedtime books abound
A bedtime book set to music.
Laiz and Vernon’s text, set to music composed by Vernon and presented on an accompanying CD, loses some of its lullaby flavor without the audio addition. This occurs due to design choices that break the text up awkwardly, interrupting cadence and shifting rhyme schemes. Meanwhile, illustrations alternate between interior scenes of a white, human family settling in for the night and outdoor scenes of various animals going to sleep. Curiously, even nocturnal or crepuscular animals such as raccoons, owls, bats, and red foxes are depicted hunkering down—almost always with smiles on their faces. The rather stiff illustrations also add many animals unmentioned by the text, including a panda and a giraffe on the cover that feel very out of place in the book’s apparent North American woodland setting. The cover art also tucks those animals and others under the titular blanket of stars, but inside the book this blanket belongs to a child and animals aren’t anthropomorphized to such a degree. The result seems like a mismatch between design and interior art. Perhaps a bigger misstep is the decision to include bedtime poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Christina Rossetti, Thomas Dekker, and then another by Vernon as backmatter. The first three underscore the failings of the main text, while the inclusion of the last seems indulgent, at best.
Better bedtime books abound . (Picture book. 1-4)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-981-4910-7-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crow Flies Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
The joys of counting combine with pretty art and homage to Goodnight Moon.
This bedtime book offers simple rhymes, celebrates the numbers one through 10, and encourages the counting of objects.
Each double-page spread shows a different toddler-and-caregiver pair, with careful attention to different skin tones, hair types, genders, and eye shapes. The pastel palette and soft, rounded contours of people and things add to the sleepy litany of the poems, beginning with “Goodnight, one fork. / Goodnight, one spoon. / Goodnight, one bowl. / I’ll see you soon.” With each number comes a different part in a toddler’s evening routine, including dinner, putting away toys, bathtime, and a bedtime story. The white backgrounds of the pages help to emphasize the bold representations of the numbers in both written and numerical forms. Each spread gives multiple opportunities to practice counting to its particular number; for example, the page for “four” includes four bottles of shampoo and four inlaid dots on a stool—beyond the four objects mentioned in the accompanying rhyme. Each home’s décor, and the array and types of toys and accoutrements within, shows a decidedly upscale, Western milieu. This seems compatible with the patronizing author’s note to adults, which accuses “the media” of indoctrinating children with fear of math “in our country.” Regardless, this sweet treatment of numbers and counting may be good prophylaxis against math phobia.
The joys of counting combine with pretty art and homage to Goodnight Moon. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93378-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name.
A brief rhyming board book for toddlers.
Spurr's earlier board books (In the Garden and At the Beach, both 2012; In the Woods, 2013) featured an adventuresome little boy. Her new slice-of-life story stars an equally joyful little girl who takes pleasure in flying a new kite while not venturing far off the walkway. Oliphant's expressive and light-filled watercolors clearly depict the child's emotions—eager excitement on the way to the park, delight at the kite's flight in the wind, shock when the kite breaks free, dejection, and finally relief and amazement. The rhymes work, though uneven syllable counts in some stanzas interrupt the smooth flow of the verse. The illustrations depict the child with her mass of windblown curls, brown skin, and pronounced facial features as African-American. Her guardian (presumably her mother) is also brown-skinned. It is refreshing to see an African-American family settled comfortably in a suburban setting with single-family homes and a park where the family dog does not need to be leashed.
A gentle outing for children who are ready for stories of everyday life rather than just objects to name. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56145-854-7
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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