As the weather turns and young readers yearn to be outside, share this well-designed tale for a most satisfying ending to a...
Ready with her backpack of essential items and trusty vivid imagination, Ruby returns for another adventure (Ruby’s School Walk, 2010)—of the backyard-at-night variety—with thrilling and eventually cozy results.
Ruby’s rhyming narrative is full of infectious enthusiasm: “I’m sleeping with Mai in my tent tonight, / When the moon is full and the stars are bright.” Mai brings a teddy and a book, but Ruby brings her blue egg, colorful beans and two magical rings. Soon camping excitement turns to worry as rumbles and shadows and overactive imaginations produce fears of a fearsome giant, a fire-snorting dragon and pirates from “magical ships that sail from the moon.” Luckily Ruby creatively uses her trove to vanquish the scary threats, and both girls tuck in for a dreamy sleep. While White’s rhythmic text keeps the fantastical action flowing, Latimer uses acrylic paints and watercolor pencils to deftly portray every detail in the girls’ real and make-believe moments. The pinkish-red tent draws the eye on most pages, but readers will pore over the smaller additions that pop in the otherwise darkish palette: a prowling mosquito, a cat prancing on the fence, Ruby’s crocodile slippers, the howling foxes, a perched owl. The final page shows all the creatures and characters cuddled up together along the curves of a crescent moon.
As the weather turns and young readers yearn to be outside, share this well-designed tale for a most satisfying ending to a good night. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84686-593-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
A humorous rhyming romp in which the usual fairy-tale villains are friends. (Picture book. 3-6)
Alice, the princess in the palace, loves her blankie, but it’s missing, so the search is on.
Her brother, Jack, used it as a curtain until a giant stole it to use as a hankie, until a witch flew off with it and made a cloak from it, until it was taken by…a cranky-looking dragon who happens to be snoring on it when Alice finds them. Alice is cranky herself but halts a brief blankie tug of war for a better solution: finding the dragon his own bedtime snuggly. It’s not easy. The dragon grows increasingly weepy, but he won’t snuggle with the witch’s “far too scratchy” cat, the giant’s feather pillow (it makes him sneeze), or Jack’s stinky socks. What can Alice do? A thorough search of the palace finally yields the dragon’s perfect snuggly and earns Alice a lifelong friend and protector. Muted mixed-media cartoon illustrations create rich backstories for each character combined with a sophisticated, smoothly reading rhyme scheme to produce a fast-moving friendship story that problem-solving young children will appreciate. Princess Alice, Prince Jack, and the giant present as dark-haired white characters.
A humorous rhyming romp in which the usual fairy-tale villains are friends. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0819-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A deterministic message detracts from the math.
For 10 flower friends, the grass is always greener…in the sky.
Ten Fantasia-like flowers with adorable faces and leaf arms/hands love being together and basking in the sun, but they also can’t help wanting to break free of their roots and fly when they see the fairies flitting about in the moonlight. One night, “Said the tiny blue one, / ‘Fairy up in the sky, / you see, I’m a flower, / but I want to fly.’ ” While the fairy is puzzled at the flower’s discontent, she grants its wish and transforms it into a butterfly. One by one the others join their mate in the sky as butterflies, each one’s color reflecting its flower origin. At daybreak, though, the new butterflies regret the transformation, and the understanding fairy changes them back again: “But big and tall, / or short and small, / being ourselves / is best of all!” Really? There isn’t even one flower that would really rather fly all the time? Throughout, McKellar emphasizes that there are always 10 in all, though some may be flowers and some butterflies at any given point. The endpapers reinforce ways to make 10 by showing 11 combinations, all in two rows of five, which may confuse children, rather than always keeping butterflies separate from flowers and allowing one row to be longer than the other. The bright colors, butterflies, flowers, and the fairy, who is a dark-skinned pixie with long black hair, seem calibrated to attract girly audiences.
A deterministic message detracts from the math. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-93382-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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