Doesn’t stand out among the many introductions to Halloween’s delights.
Chloe Zoe in back, exploring Halloween’s delights with her friends.
The anthropomorphic elephant girl is enthusiastic about all that this “autumn tradition” has to offer—carving jack-o-lanterns, apple cider, homemade doughnuts, decorating, wearing a costume, and trick-or-treating—but she’s a little leery of the old house on the corner where a friend told her an evil witch lives. Her friends Mary Margaret, a crocodile, and George, a giraffe, try to tell her that witches aren’t real, but she’s unconvinced. Still, the three have a blast with their families as they go door to door gathering tasty treats and seeing other kids’ costumes…until the only house left is the witch’s. Chloe Zoe loses her cool, only regaining it with the help of her father’s words of wisdom and her brave friends’ hands in hers. Smith’s artwork incorporates textured papers with lots of competing shapes and patterns, which can sometimes make it difficult to parse the illustrations. Also, with a few exceptions when Chloe Zoe is dealing with her witch fears, the characters’ facial expressions are static. It’s Thanksgiving, Chloe Zoe! publishes simultaneously; its plot revolves around an inedible pumpkin pie she bakes with Grammy, Grammy’s failing eyesight and Chloe Zoe’s illiteracy combining to mix cayenne with cinnamon.
Doesn’t stand out among the many introductions to Halloween’s delights. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1210-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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