A humorous tale that will appeal to the poop-obsessed but that trivializes the amazing real-life facts.
It’s not often that the answer to a book’s problem is poop….
Booker the bat is the newest guard at the library, eating bugs to protect the books. He’s nervous about his first day and hopes to fit in with the other guards, who gather before each shift to share the previous night’s adventures. Booker uses his first night to acquaint himself with the library, and he’s in the perfect place to spy a burglar, but how to stop him? Luckily, Booker’s learned from the other guards’ tales and enacts a plan to get the man caught. Children in the anything-potty-related-is-hysterical phase will love Booker’s solution. Harter’s illustrations give each bat their own personality, their every emotion clear. The burglar is light-skinned; the person wielding a mop the next morning has darker skin. An opening “Bats and Books” note tells about the library in Portugal where bats really do protect the rare book collection from insects. But by anthropomorphizing the bats and giving them a problem to solve, the author minimizes the real-life history and also muddies the facts. For instance, the book makes it seem as if the bats are trained not to poop in the library. Though the opening note does say that eating that many bugs does lead to a lot of bat poop, it doesn’t say how it’s truly addressed (librarians cover the antique tables nightly and clean the floors each morning). (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A humorous tale that will appeal to the poop-obsessed but that trivializes the amazing real-life facts. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64595-046-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pixel+Ink
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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