Kuskin offers a charming set of metaphorical musings connecting various qualities or traits with related objects or images in this imaginative display of wordplay. Her poetic text, previously published in 1960 with a different title and illustrations, is well-complemented in this version by glowing, double-page spreads featuring a wide-eyed little boy in round glasses. Each stanza follows the pattern of offering a hypothetical condition (being fierce, for example) and then asking the little boy what he (and the reader) would choose to be as a result of that attribute (a tiger or a dragon). The brief, fanciful poem explores several colors and other qualities, such as being bright or soft or loud, amplified by Iwai’s striking paintings in glowing jewel tones. Her illustrations show dragons in the clouds, dancing mice, roaring tigers and a final delicious view of the little boy reading the very same story, with his own image as the illustration. Preschoolers will enjoy this as a read-aloud, but it will also be used by teachers in the elementary grades for writing lessons on metaphor and imagery. (Picture book/poetry. 3-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-075332-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more.
A flurry of mail addressed to Duncan’s crayons ushers in the Christmas season in this novelty spinoff of the bestselling The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) and The Day the Crayons Came Home (2015).
Actual cards and letters are tucked into envelopelike pouches pasted to the pages; these are joined in some cases by other ephemera for a package that is likely to invite sudden, intense play followed by loss and/or damage that will render the book a disappointment to reread. That’s probably OK, as in contrast to the clever story that kicked this small series off, this outing has a hastily composed feel that lacks cohesion. The first letter is addressed to Peach from Mom and includes a paper doll of the “naked” (de-wrappered) crayon along with a selection of tabbed changes of clothing that includes a top hat and tails and a bikini top and bottom. Peach’s implied gender fluidity does not mitigate the unfortunate association of peach with skin color established in the first book. The sense of narrative improvisation is cemented with an early page turn that takes the crayons from outdoors snow play to “Feeling…suddenly very Christmas-y, the crayons headed inside.” Readers can unpack a box of punch-out decorations; a recipe for gluten-free Christmas cookies that begins “go to store and buy gluten-free cookies”; a punch-out dreidel (turns out Grey is Jewish); a board game (“six-sided die” not included); and a map of Esteban (aka Pea Green) and Neon Red’s travels with Santa.
Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more. (Novelty. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51574-6
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
They're going to discover Barney soon enough, if they haven't already, so parents may want to head them off at the pass with this cast of dinosaurs who are as diverse and rife with character as Barney is, well, purple. These dinosaurs, as colorfully and cleverly conceived by the Sticklands (The Christmas Bear, 1993), are huge but meek, tiny but fierce, clean but awfully prim, slovenly but affectionate. A ``sweet'' dinosaur tries to coyly ``hide'' behind a tree thinner than its arm; a ``fat'' dinosaur lounges with a palm tree between its fingers, about to chew it as if it were a blade of grass; in a primordial dinner scene, herbivores and carnivores alike look on in bemused astonishment as one strange creature, passing up both the foliage and the bones that are politely being consumed all around, feasts on the ``h'' in ``scrunch!'' Crafty details like these transform what might otherwise be just another look at the oldest cast of characters in children's literature into a visual extravaganza. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection) (Fiction/Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-525-45276-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
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