Simple, beautiful, surprisingly accurate.
Hurley applies her trademark minimalist approach to a spring-through-fall sojourn with a colony of honeybees.
The text has but 15 words, one per double-page spread: “buzz / swarm / explore / find / build / lay / feed / grown / fly / collect / pollinate / guard / sting / keep / honey.” Muted, matte illustrations depict the action: The swarm flies above early-summer flowers till the bees happen upon a hollow tree, where they establish their hive. The queen lays eggs; workers feed the larvae. The metamorphosed adult bees collect pollen and nectar from tangerine-colored fall blooms and defend the hive from a marauding skunk in order to have honey enough to last the winter. For all the graphic simplicity of Hurley’s images (gardeners will be scratching their heads as to the specific types of some of these flowers), her depiction of bee behavior is accurate. She takes considerable artistic license with the depiction of the hive in unrealistically exposing it within the enormous hole in the tree’s trunk, but the device allows readers to see a curtainlike pane of wax comb within and takes a visual stand against the all-too-common erroneous depiction of a beehive as a wasps’ nest. An author’s note fills in the narrative conveyed by the illustrations, the words of the text helpfully printed in uppercase so that caregivers can expand on each spread for curious listeners.
Simple, beautiful, surprisingly accurate. (Informational picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7003-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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