Kids will giggle at this clever ABC (note the B.C. in the subtitle) and will gleefully narrate the action out loud. F stands...
A madcap, prehistoric, alphabetic adventure à la Fred Flintstone.
With one word for each letter, the tale opens with a woolly-bearded man chasing a squirrel who’s running for an ACORN. But a BEAR chases the man back toward his CAVE, where a DINOSAUR chases all three and EATS the acorn, causing the squirrel to FAINT. Then the man rushes to a call for HELP from an armadillo-like creature frozen in a big hunk of ICE, but he’s unable to KICK it open. When the sun MELTS it, the armadillo becomes the man’s pet, but more trouble lies ahead. The cartoon illustrations enact each situation in one continuous comic scenario. The shapes are simple with few details; the google-eyed, misproportioned man wears a zigzag flounce, for instance. The word choices successfully develop the prehistoric premise except for X, which is an X-RAY of the man when he’s struck by a lightning bolt, but kids raised on Saturday-morning cartoons will just laugh at it. Q is for QUIET, and Z is for the usual ZZZZ for sleeping.
Kids will giggle at this clever ABC (note the B.C. in the subtitle) and will gleefully narrate the action out loud. F stands for FUN here. (Alphabet picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4027-7119-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
This well-intended fable founders amid misrepresentation of basic desert botany.
A saguaro cactus and its own flower become good friends and immerse themselves in the exuberance of life.
They share these “butterfly days” by admiring the many-colored desert sky, the bright stars at night, and the various wild birds and animals. Life is great for the two “buds” until the terrible day a petal is lost to the wind—soon to be followed by all. Cactus is inconsolable—not even a confluence of “all the butterflies in the world” can cheer him. Finally, memories of his friend start evoking joy instead of pain. When a new flower blooms, Cactus is ready to embrace life’s mysteries and inevitabilities. Williamson’s whimsical portrayal of Sonoran desert animals is the high point of this rather flat paean to the cycle of life. Disappointingly, the author/illustrator presents myriad inaccuracies that elicit first puzzlement and then eye rolls among readers familiar with the region. True saguaro flower clusters are ivory and yellow; the solitary pink flower looks like that of the hedgehog cactus—a different species altogether. Readers may also note that befriending the flower is akin to befriending one’s elbow—it is a part of the cactus. It does not, as indicated in the story, live side by side with the saguaro. Despite the subtitle, neither the life cycle of the saguaro nor its blossom’s is discussed in any way, shape, or form.
This well-intended fable founders amid misrepresentation of basic desert botany. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4337-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Definitely a rousingly rumbly ramble, but the seams are rough enough to trip over.
Three young dinosaurs enjoy a percussive prehistoric perambulation.
Modeled on their Watersong (2017) McCanna pairs a text composed nearly exclusively of sound-effect words to Smythe’s bright and sprightly views of a triceratops, an ankylosaurus, and a generic sauropod, all sporting smiles, googly eyes, and hides in glowing hues. They cross a log over a stream, lumber through a rocky landscape as thunder rumbles, and tumble into a dark cave to escape the eruption of a nearby volcano. Unlike the previous outing, the sounds sometimes seem oddly unsuited to the action on the page. It’s hard to figure, for instance, how “clank clack // crinkle crackle / clunk” sounds like an ankylosaurus rolling down a steep hill, or “Bang bowl / clang roll” evokes a boulder doing the same. (Maybe the author had a storyline involving robots in mind and the illustrator took an unexpected turn?) Still, there’s never a dull moment, until the cave opens out at its other end to reveal parental dinos in a peaceful setting: Ahh, “Safe and sound.” The author suddenly turns voluble, adding a closing page of remarks about dinosaurs, magma, the three kinds of rocks, what paleontologists do, and other scattered topics at least tangentially related to the mise en scène.
Definitely a rousingly rumbly ramble, but the seams are rough enough to trip over. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3002-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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