by Joyce Dunbar & illustrated by Polly Dunbar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005
“There once was a baby / Who hid in a shoe / And had learned how to say, ‘How do you do?’ ” Thus begins the rollicking, rhyming, Edward Lear–style story of the adventures of the rosy-cheeked Shoe Baby. First, the happy toddler goes to sea in the shoe and meets a dolphin and a wonderfully peculiar, man-headed octopus with crazily patterned arms. (The “sail-away” baby says “How do you do?”) The baby flies, sings and even has tea with the Queen and King in the shoe. When he falls asleep in the shoe, “So dozy, so cozy, / So tickety-boo,” he dreams of a pink cockatoo until a giant and giantess come by boo-hoo-hooing about a lost shoe (the giant) and a lost baby (the giantess). Baby wakes up, grows right out of the shoe, and pops up to say “Hi, Papa! Hi, Mama! How do you do?” Polly Dunbar’s delightful mixed-media collage illustrations of eccentric creatures great and small burst forth with as much glee as the text in this contagiously exuberant mother-daughter collaboration. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7636-2779-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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by Joyce Dunbar ; illustrated by Petr Horáček
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by Joyce Dunbar ; illustrated by Jill Barton
by Audrey Wood & illustrated by Bruce Wood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004
This charming, colorful counting tale of ten little fish runs full-circle. Although the light verse opens and closes with ten fish swimming in a line, page-by-page the line grows shorter as the number of fish diminishes one-by-one. One fish dives down, one gets lost, one hides, and another takes a nap until a single fish remains. Then along comes another fish to form a couple and suddenly a new family of little fish emerges to begin all over. Slick, digitally-created images of brilliant marine flora and fauna give an illusion of underwater depth and silence enhancing the verse’s numerical and theatrical progression. The holistic story bubbles with life’s endless cycle. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63569-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
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by Audrey Wood ; illustrated by Don Wood
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by Audrey Wood ; illustrated by Don Wood
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by Audrey Wood & illustrated by Don Wood
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 2023
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
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by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Alex Willmore
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by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
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