The title phrase is what this purple-haired little girl says when her mother awakens her, because Isabella is Sally this morning, “the greatest, toughest astronaut who ever was!” When mother calls her “Sally” at breakfast, though, the girl announces that she's Annie, the "fastest sharp-shooter." It's Rosa the activist who waits for the bus and Marie the scientist who eats the cookies mother has made for her after school. Elizabeth the doctor relaxes in the bubble bath, and then the child announces that she, Isabella, is “Mommy, the greatest, sweetest mother who ever was!” One-paragraph bios of Sally Ride, Annie Oakley, Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, Elizabeth Blackwell and “Mommy” appear at the end (the Mommy bio is rather egregious). It's difficult to suss out the story, though. While it's nifty that Isabella imagines herself to be these great women, her mother's entire efforts are bent to taking care of Isabella, from hot breakfast to hot bubblebath. If that's what she aspires to be in the end, it's both solipsistic and philosophically tenuous and leaves readers young and older unengaged. (bibliography) (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4022-4395-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina...
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up.
Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields.
Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
Come November, lots of people would cast their vote for Oliver’s teacher—just the kind of secure, commanding, compassionate presence it would be good to see in the White House. Arranged by Brunkus in warmly agreeable two-page spreads—the left side depicting the teacher tending to her responsibilities at school, the right side showing her attending to the same qualities as chief executive—Oliver tells us of her fondness for white houses, that she likes to be followed about, likes to travel, knows how to keep the attention of her charges, doesn’t mind any number of meetings, and signs important documents. Then Winters ups the ante: this gray-haired, bespeckled wise soul also knows first-hand how to react to emergencies, handle health-care issues, is interested in finding people jobs, keeping the Earth clean, and knows—here’s the kicker—how to listen. It all starts so early, these fundamentals of a sensitive existence, and Winters makes the parallels simple to digest. Here’s a third-party candidate to get behind. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-525-47186-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
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