This premature introduction to a classic character is little more than an excellent bit of marketing to eventual consumers...
Fans of L.M. Montgomery will enjoy the whimsical art and brief text inspired by the Anne of Green Gables novels.
Hill is well acquainted with the characters and scenes. She designed the covers and interior art for the 2014 reissue of the series. As she did in Anne’s Colors and Anne’s Numbers (2018), she reduces iconic scenes familiar to Anne Shirley’s many fans to preschool concepts. Commonplace emotions that can be summarized in one word (“angry,” “scared,” “happy,” “surprised”) become images recognizable to even very young children. More abstract concepts (“calm,” “brave,” “hopeful,” and the oh-so-Anne “depths of despair”) may not be comprehensible to children under 3. Hill’s appliqué technique uses scraps of fabric and visible stitching to create an old-fashioned feel but does not convey the subtleties of complex emotions. As in the original stories, all the characters are white; Anne’s braids are orange bundles of embroidery floss. Anne’s Alphabet (published simultaneously) pairs each letter with a character or plot development from the original novels. Adults with fond memories of the series will be delighted by “K is for kindred spirit” or “L is for Lake of Shining Waters.” Young children will just be mystified.
This premature introduction to a classic character is little more than an excellent bit of marketing to eventual consumers of the original. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-6287-4
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Other, stronger picture books on this theme abound.
A celebration of gardening and the harvest doesn’t quite deliver a full-grown story.
Evy is so preoccupied by gardening that she fails to notice a series of absurd, seasonally linked oddities taking place around her. A bevy of farm animals participates in these happenings, which include cows parading down the street in fancy hats that seem like Easter bonnets, donkeys sailing through the sky in sailboats, pigs dancing around a maypole, and chickens, rabbits and pigs playing badminton. Evy doesn’t notice any of these things going on around her, and the repeated parenthetical phrase “(What was Evy doing?)” prompts readers to find her performing various gardening tasks from page to page. Ultimately, two wordless spreads show readers that Evy was preparing a big harvest feast, with what looks like a pumpkin pie as the main dish, but this culmination feels anticlimactic due to the lack of concluding text as well as the revealing title and cover art. A final page shows Evy looking ahead to next year’s planting and harvesting season. While certainly silly, the picture book’s appeal is undermined by its lack of cohesion, and the comical watercolor-and-ink illustrations don’t add enough narrative content to bolster the repetitive text.
Other, stronger picture books on this theme abound. (recipes, pumpkin facts) (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4022-9526-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
F is for flop.
First seen in The Happy Little Yellow Box (2011), the title character returns to demonstrate alliteration in this alphabetical outing.
The smiling box is the only bit of color (aside from red directional arrows) in an A-to-Z progression that is otherwise all simple white lines in solid black fields. This makes it easy to spot, whether it’s hiding in a pull-up clump of “gracefully growing grass,” acting as the “exciting surprise” beneath an “egg”-shaped flap or taking a “joyful jump” at the end of a pull tab. A few exceptions aside, though—notably a dramatic final “Zoom” from behind a cloud—this is a lackadaisical effort that offers just five pop-ups; fully 15 letters come with no movable effect at all, not even a flap. Moreover, with the surreal exception of “P is for puffy planet,” most of the exemplars are commonplace (“A is for apple and five ants”). “Q” is for a “quiet mouse”; “X” is for an “exercising X” (pull the tab, and it touches its toes—but it’s all too easy to lose that tab under the page with use).
F is for flop. (Pop-up alphabet book. 2-4)Pub Date: July 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0295-8
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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