Using suggestions from kids in Mexico and Argentina, Luján crafts this refreshing collection of 12 free-verse poems about children’s pets. Featured pets range from dog, cat, parakeet, bunny, hamster and turtle to the more exotic monkey and marmot. There’s a boy and his monkey who look alike, a sympathetic bunny who knows if her owner’s sad, a dog who pops soap bubbles with her tail, a growling marmot who doesn’t like poetry, a kitty who makes life “better / when things go wrong,” and Littlekins, the dog who’s “so big / that he doesn’t even fit into his name.” Abstract, whimsical illustrations in a retro palette of brown, gold, olive and aqua rely on squiggly pencil outlines to economically define details and highlight sublime and ridiculous aspects from each poem. In expressive close-ups and zany action scenes, monkey ambles down a street, cross-eyed bunny munches a carrot, tiny hamster rubs noses with a girl, parakeet surveys from his urban window and turtle bounces off the page. Poetic pet snapshots packaged with panache and translated with aplomb. (Picture book/poetry. 2-5)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-88899-983-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2010
While there’s rhyme, this text lacks reason.
Nursery rhymes provide playful opportunities for a diverse classroom.
Readers familiar with Codell’s work may recognize that Chavarri models the teacher character after her in the colorful, digital illustrations. The teacher greets a multiracial group of children entering her nursery school classroom in frontmatter pages. And the text begins with a brief Q-and-A: “Circle time? Yes. Playing with friends? Yes. Indoor recess? NOOOOO!” The teacher holds up a Mother Goose book to entice her disappointed charges, who stand looking out at the rain in the last part of this exchange. The subsequent double-page spread doesn’t seem quite to follow, as it first shows the “Twinkle Twinkle” rhyme and then depicts a pajama-clad black child answering “Yes” to “Window?” “Star?” “Wish?” and “NOOOOO!” to “Space aliens?” But then a page turn delivers the equivocal verdict “Well, maybe” and shows the child cavorting in a fantastic outer-space scene with extraterrestrials, spaceships, and the cow jumping over the moon. (Is this indoor recess?) The Q-and-A pattern continues with other rhymes until the book’s end, when it returns to classroom, teacher, and children, who can now go outside to play since the rain, rain’s gone away.
While there’s rhyme, this text lacks reason. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4036-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
An uneven effort at inclusion.
A multicultural spin on an old rhyme stops short of rehabilitating its problematic history.
“One little, / two little, / three little children” is both the title and the first line of this picture book. The children depicted in the opening illustrations are a racially diverse group occupied in various activities. The rhyme then turns to depict “One loving, / two loving, / three loving daddies” and includes a picture of a two-dad family. Mommies come next, and then the focus shifts to houses. The first homes are in a bucolic, rural setting, and then a verso page shows an apartment building. Facing this page is a trio of homes: “Snow-cozy, / stick-cozy, / brick-cozy houses,” and herein lies the rub: the igloo and teepee depicted here are juxtaposed with a child making a structure of building blocks, undermining efforts at multicultural inclusion by falsely equating these so-called “snow” and “stick” structures with toys. These depictions also bring to the forefront the text’s similarities to versions of the rhyme referring to “One little, / two little, / three little Indians” that have been roundly critiqued as racist, or, even more egregiously, other versions that use the n-word. The appearance of another teepee on the outskirts of the closing illustration is perplexing—is it a plaything like the soccer goals? Or just a visual balance for the ice cream truck? Or something else?
An uneven effort at inclusion. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234866-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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