A dress recalls her life—from design to fashion show and museum—in this debut rhyming picture book.
After inviting readers on a journey through fashion, the narrator asserts: “I’m the little red dress, I’ll explain more with a rhyme.” The dress begins as a designer’s idea in a sketchbook. But she soon moves through all the stages of creation: finding the right fabric, getting dyed, and experimenting with dress forms and patterns until everything is just so. When the dress is worn by a model on the runway, the garment seems fit for success. But despite instant popularity, the dress soon lands in the archive. Then one day, she’s purchased for a museum as a vintage dress. In this series opener, Joseph deftly navigates the fashion process in lively poetry, making each step feel personal and important. The dress’s dismay at being archived and subsequent joy at becoming a fashion icon in a museum create empathy for an inanimate object, which is always depicted realistically in Borer’s beautiful, stylish illustrations. The mixed-media images make use of ink and watercolor in a way that captures the dress’s fluid movement. The minimalist faces leave room for the imagination to fill in the details. Though the majority are women, the diverse characters show the variety of people working in the fashion industry. Readers who appreciate biographies of fashion luminaries like Coco Chanel will enjoy this inventive spin.
A stunningly illustrated, realistic look at the fashion industry whimsically narrated by a dress.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-97045-5
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Little Red Fashion
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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