Brocket continues her Clever Concepts series with this look at numbers from one to 20.
From ordinary objects and shots of the numbers found in the world to cookie cutouts of the numbers and graffiti on a wall, the brightly colored and patterned photographs take center stage. “We can find four things / that are the same. / Four that are different. / Or two of each.” The photos show a “4” on a door, four identical striped beach chairs, four different-colored triangle pennants on a string and a checkerboard-patterned slice of cake. Clever use of embroidery melds the real and the sewn on some pages. But readers need to have a firm grasp of the slippery concept of numbers-vs.-numerals once they get into the double digits so as to avoid some headaches and confusion. The page devoted to the number 10 also uses number-shaped cookies, so there are actually 11 cookies; Brocket states that “There are twelve / numbers on the clock”; and, really jarring, the end copyright page includes a picture of the actual cookie cutters from 0 through 8—6 must double as 9. But with an adult to guide children, the pictures should help them parse the distinctions.
Brocket once again presents a pleasingly huge variety of objects, from the mundane to the fantastic and everything in between. (Counting book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4677-0232-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ferry and the Fans portray a popular seasonal character’s unlikely friendship.
Initially, the protagonist is shown in his solitary world: “Scarecrow stands alone and scares / the fox and deer, / the mice and crows. / It’s all he does. It’s all he knows.” His presence is effective; the animals stay outside the fenced-in fields, but the omniscient narrator laments the character’s lack of friends or places to go. Everything changes when a baby crow falls nearby. Breaking his pole so he can bend, the scarecrow picks it up, placing the creature in the bib of his overalls while singing a lullaby. Both abandon natural tendencies until the crow learns to fly—and thus departs. The aabb rhyme scheme flows reasonably well, propelling the narrative through fall, winter, and spring, when the mature crow returns with a mate to build a nest in the overalls bib that once was his home. The Fan brothers capture the emotional tenor of the seasons and the main character in their panoramic pencil, ballpoint, and digital compositions. Particularly poignant is the close-up of the scarecrow’s burlap face, his stitched mouth and leaf-rimmed head conveying such sadness after his companion goes. Some adults may wonder why the scarecrow seems to have only partial agency, but children will be tuned into the problem, gratified by the resolution.
A welcome addition to autumnal storytelling—and to tales of traditional enemies overcoming their history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-247576-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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A gray character tries to write an all-gray book.
The six primary and secondary colors are building a rainbow, each contributing the hue of their own body, and Gray feels forlorn and left out because rainbows contain no gray. So Gray—who, like the other characters, has a solid, triangular body, a doodle-style face, and stick limbs—sets off alone to create “the GRAYest book ever.” His book inside a book shows a peaceful gray cliff house near a gray sea with gentle whitecaps; his three gray characters—hippo, wolf, kitten—wait for their arc to begin. But then the primaries arrive and call the gray scene “dismal, bleak, and gloomy.” The secondaries show up too, and soon everyone’s overrunning Gray’s creation. When Gray refuses to let White and Black participate, astute readers will note the flaw: White and black (the colors) had already been included in the early all-gray spreads. Ironically, Gray’s book within a book displays calm, passable art while the metabook’s unsubtle illustrations and sloppy design make for cramped and crowded pages that are too busy to hold visual focus. The speech-bubble dialogue’s snappy enough (Blue calls people “dude,” and there are puns). A convoluted moral muddles the core artistic question—whether a whole book can be gray—and instead highlights a trite message about working together.
Low grade. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-4340-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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