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A HONEY OF A DAY

A host of wild animals attends the wedding of two bears set among the abundant wildflowers that have inspired this story. Marshall (Banana Moon, 1998, etc.) constructs a story out of the names of wildflowers, i.e., “Trumpets blared, bluebells rang, and blue flags waved. . . . Jack-in-the-pulpit, the preacher, looking smart in his bishop’s cap, raised his goldenrod to welcome [the guests].” All the denizens in the forest join together to help celebrate the wedding of their friends, Sweet William and black-eyed-Susan. Jack-in-the-pulpit, an owl, is the preacher; Johnny-jump-up, a rabbit, is the best man; Pussy willow (a cat, of course) is the flower girl and so on. Rose petals are thrown at the happy couple, the wedding feast consists of butter-and-eggs and marsh mallows (yes, those are wildflowers, too) and tea is served in buttercups. Unfortunately, neither the story nor the illustrations are very appealing. The cut paper illustrations are unattractively flat and overly busy, with colors that jar. The layout of each page is too uniform—each is a two-page full-bleed spread with a solid background color, with little variation in the display of the text. Even the endpapers, with individual pictures of each wildflower in octagonal frames, are drab. A clever idea, but one that is unsuccessfully executed. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 31, 2000

ISBN: 0-688-16917-1

Page Count: 24

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

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THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT

A comical, fresh look at crayons and color

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Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.

Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.

A comical, fresh look at crayons and color . (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: June 27, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013

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