These fruits do not make a large enough splash in the pool; for the best fruit in the basket, check out the old favorite,...
Chapman (Vegetables in Underwear, 2015) is back with digital illustrations featuring anthropomorphic fruits.
The front endpapers identify each fruit by name (pineapple, grapefruit, cherry, apple, etc.) as it stands fully clothed, looking uncomfortable, especially a squalling baby pomegranate; the rear endpapers show the same fruits looking comfortable and happy in their swimsuits. Most of the vividly colored fruits shown are common and familiar, and most of them are wearing swimsuits (both the boy and girl kind), but although the all-caps text points out that “there are all kinds of suits,” it does not identify any of them by name, just by style or function. Oddly, there is not any mention of the word “swimsuit.” The cheerful strawberry narrator, wearing a red-and-green polka-dot swimsuit, explains to the grapefruit wearing a business suit that “If you want to go swimming you need a suit.” Although the picture of the baby pomegranate swimming in her “birthday suit” will elicit some giggles, kids may find it difficult to differentiate between a suit “for sunbathing” and a suit “for the shade” (for the shade?), a suit “for scuba” and a suit “for surfing” when worn by a brightly colored cartoon fruit with stick arms and legs.
These fruits do not make a large enough splash in the pool; for the best fruit in the basket, check out the old favorite, Sexton Freymann and Joost Elffers’ How Are You Peeling? (2004). (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2298-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Funny and charming—a winning, worthy follow-up.
The irrepressible Flora returns for an encore avian duet, this time on ice with a penguin.
Similar in feel to Idle’s Caldecott Honor book, Flora and the Flamingo (2013), this wordless picture book follows Flora as she dons her ice skates, spies an intriguing beak poking up through the ice and begins her balletic adventure. Bird and girl meet and greet, then glide, twirl and pirouette together on the ice. Their newfound harmony is disrupted when the penguin spies a fish and disappears rapidly through a hole in the ice, causing Flora to glide away in a sulk. But wait! He was not ignoring her, just bringing her a gift! Having no use for a fish, she casually flips it back into the water, much to the penguin’s chagrin. Now both are in a huff, and Flora grumpily removes her skates. The dangling lace gives her an idea, and she creatively uses it as a fishing line. Penguin is appeased, and now both are engaged in common pursuits, fishing and dancing. Idle’s restrained palette of icy blues and soft grays combined with fluid composition that always leads the eye to the next scene in the drama keep the wordless narrative effortlessly flowing along. Small double-sided flaps on some of the pages expand the visual vocabulary, and a subtle message about friendship and compromise is conveyed.
Funny and charming—a winning, worthy follow-up. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2891-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
The beauty of an unexpected visit, done beautifully.
A solitary farmer on an empty plain receives the most unlikely visitor.
A tall, scowling farmer labors with a pitchfork on an endless brown field. In the distance, surprisingly, a steam train crosses the horizon. As the train chugs off the edge of the spread, a jolt propels something off the caboose. The startled farmer sets out in that direction. He finds a small clown, wearing white makeup, a red-and-yellow costume and a broad smile. The clown deftly pantomimes having fallen off the train—action and emotion shine wordlessly—and the farmer takes him home. Silently they stare at each other, eat and wash their faces. Without makeup, the child-clown’s smile disappears; is he sad to lose that connection to his home-train, or had the smile been made of makeup all along? With growing tenderness, the farmer watches over his sleeping guest and, come morning, hops and dances to cheer him up. They juggle eggs and share real farmwork until the circus train returns along the distant tracks. Its shape and primary colors make it look like a toy, especially against the soft, textured grays and browns of the farm, skies and earth. Using gouache and black pencil, Frazee—a virtuoso of mood and line—takes the surly farmer through bafflement, contemplativeness and true affection.
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9744-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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