Luminous art and a lyrical text capture the joys of an incandescent country summer day from bright morning to dusky evening. London (Froggy Eats Out, p. 414, etc.) rapturously begins, “We play in the sun / like a dance / dally in the brilliance / of heat / radiating / off our shining bodies.” His short, singing phrases, some rhyming, some alliterative, completely capture the brief attention span of vacation activities. In the first double-paged spread, Couch (I Know the Moon, p. 50, etc.) expresses the children’s heat-induced elation with a huge shimmering sun covering two-thirds of the pages, sending rays spilling down on the exuberant silhouettes of leaping children. The words and art of these masters elevate the ordinary pleasures of summer—swimming, sunbathing, skipping rocks, catching lizards, watching the night sky—to a hymn. Radiant watercolor and pencil illuminate the “ . . . feel / the chill ripple / down our spines . . . ” with the cool bright green-blue of swirling refreshing water. Bold geometric shapes of swimsuits, solid and translucent, contrast with the natural life of water plants that reach up with flowing, quivering tentacles. Notable is Couch’s freedom with color and line focusing on details such as purple-shadowed feet tip-toeing over zigzagged stones “ . . . the sharp bite / of rocks / like arrowheads . . . ” or a cross-section of young bodies with a drink flowing “ice cold down gullet / Ahhhhhh!” Clever layout particularly shines on the darkening blues of the spread “when the light / fades / and the first star . . . ” The word “star,” with its typeface set in white mirrors, is a lone, tiny, white, five-pointed star placed in the evening sky. A standout. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46682-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dooley (Everybody Bakes Bread, 1996, etc.) dishes up another premise for Carrie to eat her way around her multicultural neighborhood. Thornton again offers framed, lifeless illustrations that stick to a predictable text. Today is a snow day at school and Christmas approaches. Carrie is tapped out after buying gifts for everybody except Mom, who always wants “anything that comes from your heart.” She hopes to earn money by shoveling snow. But when she helps Tito shovel his walk and steps, he tells her the landlord won’t pay, although they can warm up with a bowl of his sister Fendra’s Puerto Rican pea soup. Carrie gets the recipe. John has a cold and can’t shovel, but his mom offers a cup of Greek lemon-chicken soup and the recipe. And so it goes—recipes pour in along with Mark’s mom’s corn chowder, Darlene’s grandaunt’s oxtail soup, and Wendy’s mom’s miso soup. Recipes, however, don’t buy gifts, and at the end of the day Carrie has earned only ten dollars from Dad. That and Mrs. Max’s idea are enough to buy Mom’s gift—a blank book in which Carrie can write her newfound recipes. Preparing for Hanukkah, Mrs. Max reminds Carrie that “good soup with a friend warms more than the body.” The recipes included give readers an opportunity to test that notion in a book more cookery than fiction, more work-a-day than holiday. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2000
ISBN: 1-57505-422-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Carolrhoda
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be...
In his third beginning reader about Otto the robot, Milgrim (See Otto, 2002, etc.) introduces another new friend for Otto, a little mouse named Pip.
The simple plot involves a large balloon that Otto kindly shares with Pip after the mouse has a rather funny pointing attack. (Pip seems to be in that I-point-and-I-want-it phase common with one-year-olds.) The big purple balloon is large enough to carry Pip up and away over the clouds, until Pip runs into Zee the bee. (“Oops, there goes Pip.”) Otto flies a plane up to rescue Pip (“Hurry, Otto, Hurry”), but they crash (and splash) in front of some hippos with another big balloon, and the story ends as it begins, with a droll “See Pip point.” Milgrim again succeeds in the difficult challenge of creating a real, funny story with just a few simple words. His illustrations utilize lots of motion and basic geometric shapes with heavy black outlines, all against pastel backgrounds with text set in an extra-large typeface.
Emergent readers will like the humor in little Pip’s pointed requests, and more engaging adventures for Otto and Pip will be welcome additions to the limited selection of funny stories for children just beginning to read. (Easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85116-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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