It’s pretty to look at, but it’s too generic to be an essential addition to an autumnal-themed book collection.
Autumn’s arrival sends an oak leaf on a windswept adventure against dappled, pointillist-style paintings.
A leaf appears, distinct and crisp against the gauzy background. It’s an eye-catching burst of gold and umber that contrasts with the lovely, if unexpectedly spring-y, Monet-inspired pastel colors. As the text catalogs the leaf’s travels through settings both natural (“over freezing lake waters”) and built (blown about by a freight train), it’s odd that there are so few autumnal references. Some of the leaf’s adventures, such as wafting through a vividly crimson maple tree or glimpsing geese migrating, are topically seasonal, but others, like a visit to a calf or a momma fox, don’t feel as germane. As the oak leaf floats lower over the city, it’s caught and pressed in a book by a white girl, a pleasant conclusion that gives the leaf’s journey a feeling of completion, though the ending is hampered slightly by the child’s somewhat unfinished-looking face—the illustrator is clearly more adept at capturing sweeping natural scenes than portraits. Written with a quiet poeticism, concise lines such as “Up through the mist, away from the earth, up” establish a pensive tone that neatly matches the quiet tale, though the text isn’t exactly bursting with personality either.
It’s pretty to look at, but it’s too generic to be an essential addition to an autumnal-themed book collection. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-944903-73-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Cameron + Company
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Slumber and science in harmonious combination, equally suitable for bedtime reading or for sharing with wakeful groups.
A cozy combination of restful rhymes, natural history notes and close-up pictures of snoozing creatures.
Meyer’s verse gets ahead of itself in the first stanza—“The sun has set; the sky is dark. / Bright stars shine in the night. / It’s time to rest, to dream sweet dreams, / then wake with morning’s light”—and elsewhere favors sound over sense, but despite these small miscues, its gently rhythmic measures create a properly soporific tone for this look at animal downtimes. As the prose commentary accompanying each of the 14 rhymed entries makes clear, sleeping patterns vary widely, and scientists are often hard put to find them at all: Horses and giraffes tend to take only short naps; grizzly bears can fall into a long sleep that resembles hibernation; dolphins and mallards rest half their brains at a time; fish rest but may not truly sleep. Other animals presented include koalas, owls, flamingos, brown bats, giant anteaters, magnificent frigatebirds, black-tailed prairie dogs and walruses. Meyer nonetheless bids all the chosen creatures “Sweet dreams,” and Caple depicts them in accurate detail and quiet settings yawning (where appropriate) or posed fetchingly with younglings.
Slumber and science in harmonious combination, equally suitable for bedtime reading or for sharing with wakeful groups. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-87842-637-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mountain Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
A tongue-in-cheek reminder that good food doesn’t have to come in a box, jar or plastic bag.
Would a supermarket catering to animals stock pizza? Ice cream? Sugary snacks?
Definitely not, at least according to this import. Instead, the snail is going to opt for lettuce, kale and herbs, the goat for turnips and gourds, the cat for milk (“the kind with the double cream”), and the seals for fresh mackerel and canned sardines. A three-for-two sale on crumbs draws ants and birds, the gibbons will go for grubs, and for bee customers, the whole frozen-food section (“never very popular”) has been replaced by a meadow. Though most of the stock is neatly stacked on shelves or in shopping carts in the painterly illustrations, bears snack on pawsful of blueberries, a mongoose steals eggs, and there are other signs of lively disorder. Mulazzani dresses her thickly brushed animals in human clothes and stands them up on hind legs, but they’re still recognizable enough to match, in a closing visual quiz, with arrays of preferred edibles—including, perhaps as a concession to human viewers, fruit ices and minipizzas—spread out on a table. Packaged and processed goods? Still in evidence. Nonetheless, the overall emphasis on fresh fruits and veggies sends a salutary message to young consumers.
A tongue-in-cheek reminder that good food doesn’t have to come in a box, jar or plastic bag. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5448-3
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
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