Fancy Nancy Clancy, the charming child who likes beads, baubles and big words, returns for another fanciful adventure that will please her adoring audience. As in the first entry in the series, Nancy dresses to the nines, uses sophisticated vocabulary and tries valiantly to elevate her family’s tastes from practical to fantastic. In this sequel, the Clancy family is planning to buy a puppy, and Nancy wants a French papillon like Jewel, the pampered pooch owned by their next-door neighbor. When Nancy and her family arrange to dogsit for Jewel, they realize that such a tiny, delicate breed doesn’t fit their lifestyle after all. They visit a shelter and adopt a larger, more playful dog named Frenchy, who can play games and do tricks and still be dressed up in doggie accessories. Glasser’s appealing ink-and-watercolor illustrations again add considerable charm to Nancy’s precocious personality, from her dog bone–bedecked headband and poodle skirt right down to her lacy, heart-embroidered socks. Nancy seems destined for more explorations of things frou-frou and frilly—perhaps a shopping trip to Paris with Frenchy? (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-054213-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cheng’s story of a Chinese-speaking grandfather who comes to live with his daughter’s English-speaking family ably communicates the difficulties of the language barrier, and the unanticipated joys that come from working your way through that barrier. Helen is ambivalent about the arrival of her grandfather, Gong Gong, from China. She wants to know her grandfather, but she has had to surrender her room and her cherished view of the train tracks to him. Worst of all, he doesn’t understand what she says, and as she doesn’t understand him, he withdraws. Her mother says to give him some space and time. One day while Helen is sitting on the back wall, Gong Gong joins her, and together they count the train cars as the freight rumbles past. Contact. Helen learns the first eight numbers in Chinese and Gong Gong learns them in English. From there it is a short leap to Helen’s Chinese name and its Chinese characters, and then the letters used to spell Helen. That every journey starts with a first step is a commonplace conceit, but here the notion fits so snugly the point practically sings, and it feels like an adventurous beginning at that. Lushly colored artwork from Zhang is both elegant and captures the moods of tentativeness, surprise, and satisfaction. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-58430-010-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
New dads will eat this up.
A giant hulk of a man describes his emotions as his child captures his heart.
“On the day you were born, I beamed with pride. / My eyes filled with tears. I joyfully cried. / From the moment I saw you and called out your name, / the world as I knew it was never the same.” The rest of the book proceeds to demonstrate just how thoroughly this tot has their father wrapped around their finger and shows the dad lovingly caring for his growing child’s every need: bottles, diapers, soothing, tickling, feeding, bathing, playing, reading, and exploring the world. While the rhyme and rhythm aren’t always spot-on and one illustration depicts a crib instead of the cradle referred to in the text, there is no denying the appeal of this father-child pair, as their bond is more than apparent. The dichotomy between the tiny redheaded tot and the giant lumberjack–look-alike dad—red plaid shirt, blue jeans, full red beard and mustache, and tiny head perched atop a round body with tree-trunk forearms—both white, adds to the sweet sentimentality (sometimes slipping into saccharine) of this book. While young children may relish the opportunity to use this as a springboard for hearing about their own babyhoods with their dads, new fathers are just as likely an audience, the sweet refrain—“Of all the children that ever could be, / you are the one made just for me”—tugging at heartstrings.
New dads will eat this up. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-945547-69-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Familius
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
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