Shy and confident children alike will enjoy this story.
Small, brown-skinned Lily is able to navigate her world more easily when she wears a cat mask.
“Lily wasn’t sure she wanted to get new things for school, but her father said it would be fun.” The tiny child is walking next to her father, whose left hand reaches for a pink-striped shirt on a clothes rack as his right hand rests lightly on Lily’s curly head. The gentle washes of watercolor combine with not-quite-realistic images to enhance the text and create an underlying tone of nonthreatening humor. The slant of the willful preschooler’s body, for example, is exaggerated but resonates as true to life. When Lily is captivated by the only cat mask on a shelf of masks, her dad does “something unusual” and buys it for her. Lily wears it out of the store—and then everywhere possible, quickly realizing the advantages. Most adults completely humor the child, but when Lily starts school, Ms. Ito, her Japanese-American teacher, insists that Lily wear the mask only at recess time. Excellent artwork that will be easily understood by children shows Lily as shy but not ostracized by her diverse classmates. There is a bit of rebellion, followed by a bit of teacher push back, but not the meltdown that might be expected—probably because Lily is learning how to cope without the mask. The surprise ending is equally sweet and reassuring.
Shy and confident children alike will enjoy this story. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-425-28799-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A funny David-versus-Goliath story with a one-word question serving as the slingshot. (Picture book. 3-5)
Doctor X-Ray, a megalomaniac with an X-ray blaster and an indestructible battle suit, crashes through the ceiling of the local mall.
Innocent patrons scatter to safety. But one curious child gazes directly at the bully and asks: “Why?” At first, Doctor X-Ray answers with all the menace and swagger of a supervillain. The curious child, armed with only a stuffed bear and clad in a bright red dress, is not satisfied with the answers and continues asking: “Why?” As his pale cheeks flush with emotion, Doctor X-Ray peels back the onion of his interior life, unearthing powerful reasons behind his pursuit of tyranny. This all sounds heavy, but the humorously monotonous questions coupled with free-wheeling illustrations by Keane set a quick pace with comical results. At 60 pages, the book has room to follow this thread back to the diabolical bully’s childhood. Most of the answers go beyond a child’s understanding—parental entertainment between the howl of the monosyllabic chorus. It is the digital artwork, which is reminiscent of Quentin Blake’s, that creates a joyful undercurrent of rebellion with bold and loose brush strokes, patches of color, and expressive faces. The illustrations harken to a previous era save for the thoroughly liberated Asian child speaking truth to power.
A funny David-versus-Goliath story with a one-word question serving as the slingshot. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6863-0
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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