Ripe for discussion.
A child learns to create a little private space to find peace and recenter in order to once again share with others.
Sometimes even a loving home can feel a little too loud or crowded. Whether it’s a younger sibling playing the piano or grandma slurping, at times it’s too noisy for the bespectacled protagonist, who wears a high bun. Smells and lights on the bus and at school can also overwhelm, and sometimes the inexplicable can be too much. So one day, the narrator climbs to the top of a kid-filled jungle gym to grab some space. Olson as both author and artist plays with the homonym, as the child literally and figuratively grabs for space and captures some universe in a bottle. Wanting even more, the kid grabs jars and bucketfuls until the cosmos is all around. Finally able to meditate, rest, and dream, the child is then able to rejoin the multigenerational family—and still keep a bit of private space, shown in the replacement of each family member’s hair with a starry infinitude. While the characters are drawn in a simplified style, inventive compositions will transport readers into the thoughts and emotions of the protagonist. Both text and art show familiar experiences, but Olson also leaves them open to interpretation, showing people can interact with the world in different ways. The family is interracial, with Asian-presenting mom and grandparents and white-presenting dad.
Ripe for discussion. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20626-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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