Tots will find Fiona a welcome nursery presence.
A photogenic hippo models emotions and behaviors in an undeniably winning board book.
Born six weeks prematurely, Cincinnati Zoo resident Fiona, the baby hippo, required much extra nursing and attention from her human caregivers. Fiona’s growth and progress were meticulously documented, blogged, and reblogged, making her an internet sensation in the process. As fate would have it, there are few things cuter than an underweight baby hippo, making Fiona an ideal candidate for a children’s board book. Fiona’s abundance of personality makes her well-suited to model a range of basic emotions; anthropomorphizing her various grins, yawns, peeks, and bellows comes naturally and easily. The success or failure of this type of book is a direct function of how unambiguously the photographs suggest the feelings indicated by the text. To that end, author and pediatrician Hutton has chosen an exemplary selection of pictures to accompany his simple rhymes: “Hippo happy. / Sometimes sad. // Often silly. / Uh-oh, mad.” Each page offers one photo and one clear concept that should resonate with the board-book audience, providing children with vocabulary for their own emotions and expressions. The steady meter and smooth rhyme scheme are easily retained; with repeated readings children will no doubt anticipate and be able to name familiar states such as “scared,” “proud,” “sleepy,” “shy,” and “hungry,” to name a few.
Tots will find Fiona a welcome nursery presence. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-936669-65-3
Page Count: 14
Publisher: blue manatee press
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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