All sparkle and no substance. (Board book. 1-3)
Cute fairies flit about rainbows and forest friends in a rewritten song set to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Opening on a minute fairy with bubble-gum–pink hair, light-brown skin, and a star-tipped wand, the book follows her through a magical day seemingly designed to elicit squeals of delight. Readers watch as she flies with butterflies, romps in the rain with fellow fairies, and lunches with friendly mice and chipmunks before finally returning home to be safely tucked into bed. The fairies have round, oversized heads and a variety of light and dark skin tones, and at least one fairy eschews pink and purple. There’s no attempt at subtlety in the illustrations: Pages burst with colors straight out of a candy store; the wide-eyed fairies frolic about giant flowers and grinning insects; and a glossy cover is plastered with iridescent sparkles. It’s not high art, but it’s easy enough on the eye. Overwrought singable text matches the art’s unabashedly enthusiastic tone, with lines that gush about “sparkle magic in the sky” and “happiness that never ends.” While the stanzas aren’t difficult to sing aloud, the refrain drones, and the uninspired verses—with occasionally strained rhymes such as “Twinkle, twinkle, come and play. / Oh, what things you find today”—edge toward cloying.
All sparkle and no substance. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3977-1
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A perfect piece of treasure it is not, but shiver me timbers, it’s fun.
Two pirates and their parrot companion embark on adventures to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
Following Car, Car, Truck, Jeep (2018), Charman and Sharratt team up again for this swashbuckling, musical tale. The two buccaneers and their parrot spend a day at sea engaged in such maritime activities as scrubbing the deck and hoisting the sail along with quintessentially piratical chores like digging up buried treasure. At the end of the day—which culminates in a nonviolent walk across the plank—the two pirates return home. Charman’s rhyming text has a nice cadence, and thanks to the cover note to sing along to the tune of “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat,” it moves along at a nice clip. For the most part, the rhymes work neatly into the tune so that it reads easily the first time through. Sharratt’s black-outlined illustrations are boldly colored and eye-catching. The pirates themselves are not obviously gendered; one presents white and the other has light-brown skin. Most of the ocean creatures have anthropomorphized features—a mostly successful choice with the exception of the jellyfish and octopus, shown awkwardly with humanlike noses and smiles (and, oddly, eyebrows for the octopus). Overall, this one holds high appeal for little readers, and the nature of the singsong-y, rhyming text will make it a highly requested reread.
A perfect piece of treasure it is not, but shiver me timbers, it’s fun. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0319-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Take it, or leave it.
A wintertime story that can be sung to the tune of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
The itsy bitsy snowman and his friends are playing in the snow. They climb up a snowy hill, jump on a sled, slide fast, and zip past children skating on ice. Then, though the text tells readers that he “dodged a snowball fight,” his head becomes separated from his body. Not to worry, “out came his friends / to lend a happy hand.” In the last spread the itsy bitsy snowman stands with his mom, dad, and friends, “And everything was perfect / in his winter wonderland.” The story, intended to be read to the tune of the beloved nursery rhyme, doesn’t always quite fit the template, as in: “The itsy bitsy snowman / climbed up the snowy hill. // He jumped on a sled / and slid fast…what a thrill!” For no obvious reason, on every page one word is printed in a different color from the rest of the text. Rescek’s illustrations are bright, cheery, and cartoonlike, with an appropriate wintry pale blue as the dominant color. Though sweet and cute, there is nothing particularly fresh or new here.
Take it, or leave it. (Board book. 1-2)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4837-6
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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