Shaniqua, Bruce, Mrs. God, and, of course, God, return after What a Truly Cool World (1999), to reveal the answer to a question children are bound to wonder about. When the world was new, ladders joined heaven and earth, and folks visited back and forth. However, that didn’t work out—because of the snakes. God thinks the snakes are lovely—“like watching silence dance,” he says—but people kill them because they are afraid, and creatures eat them because they think they’re called snacks. God sends Bruce to use the computer in the Library of Everything That Is Going to Be to find snake poison. When so armed, though, the snakes drive everyone into heaven, overrunning God and Mrs. God’s miniature golf game and wreaking havoc. Mrs. God (her name’s Irene) and Shaniqua, the Angel in Charge of Everybody’s Business, talk to the snakes to resolve the problem (“Thank you for asking what it’s like to be a snake. No one ever did”). Turns out Mrs. God is a bit miffed at being left out of the original creation effort, so she and Shaniqua set about rearranging the snakes, their poison, and everything else—music doesn’t seem to calm these savage breasts. But God and Mrs. God know that those on earth have to work out their own problems, and so all the ladders are pulled up but one (Shaniqua needs a way to know everybody’s business, after all). The language is funny and true, the pictures practically chortle off the pages, and children will find the answers not only to the title question, but to why stars fall and hawks soar as well as to what the Zero Commandment is. Furthermore, they’ll always be looking for that one last ladder—after all, it leads straight to heaven. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-439-17871-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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