written and illustrated by Jon Seymour ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2023
A giggle of a tale with a simple lesson of determination.
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A hungry muffin’s favorite breakfast dish is out of reach in author/illustrator Seymour’s picture book.
This feather-light, just-for-fun children’s story begins as a muffin named Blueburry takes a stroll on the kitchen counter looking for a tasty treat for breakfast. A bowl of icing would be perfect, but it’s on a table that’s some “one thousand muffin-meters away.” Blueburry’s thwarted efforts to reach the table include an unfortunate balloon incident, a rope made of soggy spaghetti, and a too-powerful slingshot crafted from kitchen tools. Encouraged by his kitchen counter friends—a bowl of fruit, a loaf of bread, and a juice box—Blueburry “hike[s] up his muffin liner,” keeps trying, and turns failure into unexpected success. Young children will undoubtedly get a kick out of how thoroughly Blueburry appreciates the finale to his dilemma. Still, readers will find that a clear message of peer support and self-confidence comes through. The author adds whimsy to the proceedings with his spare, fine-lined, pen-and-ink illustrations that give life to goofy-faced food items. Some words, including sound effects, are enlarged for emphasis, encouraging young children to read along. (A “Blueburry” muffin recipe is included.)
A giggle of a tale with a simple lesson of determination.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781738013807
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Tielmour Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 24, 2019
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
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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