There’s nourishment to be found here, but it doesn’t add up to a fully rounded meal.
Through the seasons, Poppy the alpaca and her mates explore the fields and gardens of Moonrise Farm, introduced in earlier volumes of the series Sweet Pea & Friends.
Other farm animals and an occasional human (the white family of the co-creators) appear, but the visual emphasis is on the alpacas, unusual enough to invite curiosity despite the lack of a strong storyline. In every double-page, full-bleed spread, Poppy finds fresh, healthy new foods to eat as the seasons change, encouraging children to do the same. Names of fruits, vegetables, and herbs are sprinkled through the text, but young readers may not be able to easily match names with specific items in the photos. One cold evening, Poppy’s mother shows her the harvest moon and the Canada geese migrating south. She says: “Soon, everything on the farm will rest until spring.” After eating freely through spring and summer, Poppy worries that there will be nothing left, but her mother shows her the barn. The more experienced alpaca tells her: “Farmer John and Farmer Jennifer have stored food from the gardens for us.” The photo montages, ethereal and out of focus at times, are so full of flora and fauna to look at that children will want to return to the pictures, but the overlong, static text fails to enchant.
There’s nourishment to be found here, but it doesn’t add up to a fully rounded meal. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-41160-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25425-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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