The edibles of New York City receive a spiritless presentation in this adaptation of a traditional song. A different food item is named for each day of the week, followed by the phrase, “All you lucky children come and eat it up.” Seven days of the week pass as the cut-paper illustrations show more and more kids in the park being served the foods mentioned. While no one would argue that most of the dishes are not New York foods, it would have been easy enough to exchange the relatively universal pizza or Buffalo wings for foods that highlight the diversity of the Gotham palate. As it stands, the foods mentioned are entirely European and Eastern European with little attention paid to the contributions of immigrants from other parts of the globe. The distinctly flat illustrations do little to jazz up the text. Information on the history of the foods mentioned and other New York foods associated with the city (also all European) are listed at the end. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58980-886-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pelican
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautifully illustrated children’s poem about the joys of reading.
A young girl travels to an isle of stories in Magistro’s debut picture book with illustrations by Feagan.
After dawn, a nameless child with olive skin, brown eyes, and long, wavy brown hair sets sail to an island composed of books. There, a sea wolf announces that it’s safe for all the other animals to come out, including grizzly bears, eagles, whales, elk, foxes, and salmon. They gather for a reading by a fox who encourages them to “Breathe in. Breathe out. Listen well.” The tale, told in short, rhyming proverbs from a poetic second-person perspective, is immersive. However, some readers may wish for a more well-defined plot. After the many vivid animal descriptions (“An eagle lands, a humpback waves”), not much happens on Read Island—but perhaps that’s Magistro’s point. Feagan’s winning, joyful illustrations, which use pleasing, delicate color palettes, make up for the lack of a strong storyline. One of the images—a fantastical, dynamic rainbow, featuring mermaids, gryphons, astronauts, and dragons—effectively captures the feeling of reading something really special for the first time. In the end, Magistro clarifies her point about the safe space that reading creates: “This world of stories, safe and true, / Is always here to welcome you.”
A beautifully illustrated children’s poem about the joys of reading.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-652330-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Ignoring a big dragon’s repeated complaints, one, two, three…up to ten little dragons make increasing amounts of sleep-preventing noise in this bouncy counting rhyme. Using a flat silkscreen style for his digitally created cartoon scenes, Long supplies a swelling band of spiky, pop-eyed youngsters with toys and musical instruments, along with such modern noisemakers as a flat-screen television, to keep the increasingly irritated parent (or maybe older sib?) wakeful. Modeled on “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” and like chestnuts, the written narrative offers both a reasonably regular cadence and some deft alliteration: “Three dancing dragons learn to tap, tap, tap. / One groggy dragon groans, ‘I want to nap!’ ” At last the miscreants tumble into bed themselves—only to find the tables turned by their larger cavemate’s spread-filling snores. A lighthearted take on a topic of common domestic interest, equally suited to sharing one on one or with a larger audience. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 970-0-545-16557-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
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