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THE VERY BEST DOLL

In this sweetly old-fashioned story, little Nell is a soft cloth doll with a polka-dot dress and button eyes who accompanies her little owner everywhere. When the unnamed narrator celebrates her sixth birthday, she receives a large ballerina doll with a more sophisticated look, realistic hair, and a trunk full of fancy clothes. The new doll becomes the favorite companion, until bedtime, when the old, familiar friend is rescued from under the covers and brought back into her place of honor. The short, poetic text uses strings of hyphenated phrases with a rollicking rhythm to describe each doll (“a sunshine-or-rain, never-complain, loyal kind of doll”) and the little girl’s feelings. The double-page spread illustrations show the little girl’s comfortable home in an earlier era (when girls had just a few dolls), and the dolls each have distinct personalities. The short text, simple plot, and large, appealing illustrations make this a good choice for younger preschoolers as well as for story hours with a theme of dolls or toys. (Picture book. 2-5)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-525-47075-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2003

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THE THREE LITTLE SUPERPIGS AND THE GINGERBREAD MAN

Superheroes, and readers, will live happily-ever-after.

Why have fairy tales lasted so long? Maybe it’s because they change with every teller.

It takes surprisingly little effort to turn the Three Little Pigs into superheroes. The Big Bad Wolf basically started out as a supervillain, with the ability to blow a house down, and the pigs had to perform spectacular feats to outwit him. In this picture book, the wolf, locked in the Happily Never After tower, devises a plot to escape. Using rotten eggs and spicy ginger, he creates the Gingerbread Man, who makes his way to a baking contest where the three pigs and other fairy-tale characters are competing to win the key to the city. The Gingerbread Man grabs the key, and not even superhero pigs are fast enough to catch him, but with their secret weapon—mustard (which one of the pigs also uses to bake cookies)—they save the day. The morals: Evil never triumphs, and mustard cookies are delicious. The book’s charm is in the details. There are splotches of mustard on the cookies featured on the endpapers, and a sly-looking mouse is hiding on many of the pages. The story even manages to include more than a dozen fairy-tale figures without seeming frenzied. Evans’ use of shading is so skillful that it almost seems possible to reach out and touch the characters. Most of the human characters are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Superheroes, and readers, will live happily-ever-after. (Picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-338-68221-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022

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PINK IS FOR BOYS

In this picture book, pink may be for boys, but colors are still not quite for everyone.

Pink, blue, yellow, and orange—all colors that are for boys, girls, popsicles, and unicorns.

With simple text and vibrant illustrations of racially diverse children playing together, this book introduces 10 colors “for boys. And girls.” For each new color, Pearlman shares an example of where to find the color: on sports uniforms, crowns, race cars, and teddy bears. Each color is presented in simple, repetitive text on verso (alternating which gender as specified first) with a vignette on recto and then on the next, full-bleed double-page spread. Kaban’s illustrations of children dancing, running, and flying on winged unicorns add an element of liveliness to keep the repetition from turning stale. Colored type that corresponds with the name of each introduced color encourages young readers to participate in the story. Although the book shares the message that “all colors are for everyone,” the lead-up to this conclusion perpetuates the notion that gender is binary. The statement that “PINK [or blue, yellow, etc.] is for boys. And girls” leaves out anyone who might not fit those categories until the end. Even the examples for pink and blue reinforce stereotypical associations for the colors, since pink is for “bows on fancy clothes” and blue is for “uniforms on a team.” For a book that aims at inclusiveness, this one misses the bull’s-eye.

In this picture book, pink may be for boys, but colors are still not quite for everyone. (Picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: June 5, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-7624-6247-6

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Running Press Kids

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018

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