A boy sees monsters at night.
Whenever his mom or dad says “Lights-out, Leonard,” Leonard—a White boy in a fox suit—cries “NO!” and wins five more minutes. The extra time doesn’t help banish the lurking monsters, nor does persuading his tired parents to leave his lights on overnight for a week. Even in a well-lit room, Leonard sees creatures that have many extra features and limbs: “five-nosed, seven-tailed, eleven-handed, scaly-waily.” Then someone places an instruction book on Leonard’s bed. Ways to frighten monsters include “Minty breath—this makes monsters feel so sick they shrivel up and disintegrate into a pile of dust” (clever parents!); stuffed animals, which eject monsters “straight through the ceiling and onto the moon”; and gentle music, which makes monsters “go flat like pancakes, and their ears dry up like old playdough.” Nixon’s art features sharp angles, inky purple-blues against low-contrast oranges, and so many discordant patterns that although the visual chaos makes symbolic sense, the spreads are too busy, with no particular place for readers’ eyes to focus. The multipatterned monsters are so abstract that they require effort to see. For deeper and more cohesive monster-conquering, go old-school with Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are or get Emily Tetri’s brilliant Tiger vs. Nightmare (2018).
Too visually busy and abstract to help with readers’ own monster woes. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-062-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Even more alliterative hanky-panky from the creators of The Wonky Donkey (2010).
Operating on the principle (valid, here) that anything worth doing is worth overdoing, Smith and Cowley give their wildly popular Wonky Donkey a daughter—who, being “cute and small,” was a “dinky donkey”; having “beautiful long eyelashes” she was in consequence a “blinky dinky donkey”; and so on…and on…and on until the cumulative chorus sails past silly and ludicrous to irresistibly hysterical: “She was a stinky funky plinky-plonky winky-tinky,” etc. The repeating “Hee Haw!” chorus hardly suggests what any audience’s escalating response will be. In the illustrations the daughter sports her parent’s big, shiny eyes and winsome grin while posing in a multicolored mohawk next to a rustic boombox (“She was a punky blinky”), painting her hooves pink, crossing her rear legs to signal a need to pee (“winky-tinky inky-pinky”), demonstrating her smelliness with the help of a histrionic hummingbird, and finally cozying up to her proud, evidently single parent (there’s no sign of another) for a closing cuddle.
Should be packaged with an oxygen supply, as it will incontestably elicit uncontrollable gales of giggles. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-60083-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
After a visit, an African-American grandfather and grandson say farewell under a big yellow moon. Granpa tells Max it is the same moon he will see when he gets home.
This gently told story uses Max’s fascination with the moon’s ability to “tag along” where his family’s car goes as a metaphor for his grandfather’s constant love. Separating the two relatives is “a swervy-curvy road” that travels up and down hills, over a bridge, “past a field of sleeping cows,” around a small town and through a tunnel. No matter where Max travels, the moon is always there, waiting around a curve or peeking through the trees. But then “[d]ark clouds tumbled across the night sky.” No stars, no nightingales and no moon are to be found. Max frets: “Granpa said it would always shine for me.” Disappointed, Max climbs into bed, missing both the moon and his granpa. In a dramatic double-page spread, readers see Max’s excitement as “[s]lowly, very slowly, Max’s bedroom began to fill with a soft yellow glow.” Cooper uses his signature style to illustrate both the landscape—sometimes viewed from the car windows or reflected in the vehicle’s mirror—and the expressive faces of his characters. Coupled with the story’s lyrical text, this is a lovely mood piece.
A quiet, warm look at the bond between grandfather and grandson. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: June 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-23342-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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