London and Rex have teamed up again (Wiggle Waggle, not reviewed) to produce a captivating bedtime tale for the preschool set. As in Wiggle Waggle, London employs echoic words to describe how various animal mothers hug their young, drawing a correlation between them and how readers hug their own moms. The text is primarily a repetition of the same format for a variety of animals. Each two-page spread is devoted to a mother/child couple. The question “How does a (bunny/otter/monkey) hug?” is located in the upper left-hand corner of the page. The answers are a collection of toddler-pleasing tongue twisters, e.g., “Snuggle wuggle, snuggle wuggle” for a bunny and “Pouchety boing! boing! boing!” for a kangaroo. The whimsical refrains lend themselves to a boisterous read-aloud session, encouraging readers’ enthusiastic participation. The majority of the spread comprises an extreme close-up of Rex’s realistically drawn animals: loving mothers cradling their blissful offspring. Clean lines mark the illustrations and the colorful, crisp images are situated against a pure white background. The tale concludes with an open-ended question, asking readers to describe how they hug. A very simple format that works extremely well either as group read-aloud or an individual story time for young children. Besides providing a cuddly bedtime story, London’s tale also aids little ones in identifying a broad assortment of familiar animals. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-202159-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ho-hum.
A riff on the familiar lullaby depicts various animal parents, and then a human father, soothing their sleepy little ones.
An opening spread includes the traditional first verse of the titular lullaby, but instead of depicting a human baby in a treetop cradle, the accompanying illustration shows a large tree as habitat to the animals that are highlighted on subsequent pages. First the perspective zooms in on a painterly illustration rendered in acrylics of a mother squirrel cuddling her baby with text reading “Rock-a-bye Squirrel, / high in the tree, / in Mommy’s arms, / cozy as can be.” In this spread and others the cadence doesn’t quite fit with the familiar tune, and repeated verses featuring different animals—all opening with the “Rock-a-bye” line—don’t give way to the resolution. No winds blow, no boughs break, and the repetitive forced rhythm of the verse could cause stumbles when attempting a read-aloud. The final image of a human father and baby, whose skin tone and hair texture suggest that they are perhaps of South Asian descent, provides pleasing visual resolution in a book with art that outshines text.
Ho-hum. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3753-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
A picture-book treat.
Can Klondike the seal resist eating his little sister’s cupcakes before her birthday party?
Alas, he cannot. But before the story arrives at this moment of crisis, Klondike tries mightily to fight temptation. Humorous second-person narration addresses him in a one-sided conversation, with directives, admonitions, and commentary on his willful disregard of Bruiser the guard dog and a polar bear magician who are brought in to deter and distract him. Imagining that the cupcakes are “squid sandwiches…Or tubeworm tacos…Or curried crabs” fails to disgust the unclothed yet anthropomorphized seal, who finally gobbles up the pink, frosted cupcakes, much to his sister’s dismay and his mother’s anger. But! Klondike makes things right by whipping up a new batch just in time for the party, including another serving for himself. Readers will find a recipe for chocolate-chip cupcakes in the backmatter and are sure to enjoy the depicted antics of gluttonous Klondike in Driscoll’s illustrations, which emphasize comic visual characterization.
A picture-book treat. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1316-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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