family’s lucky / that I didn’t want a cow!" (Picture book. 3-6)
A moderately silly counting book, with slick, cartoony, computer-influenced illustrations opposite each page of short rhymed
text. A girl in overalls buys a chick at the General Store, the kind of shop with ribbons and paint, a barrel of pickles and hams hung from the ceiling. Her older sister, charmed by the black chicks, buys two more, and her father, taken by the striped ones, buys three, and so on through her family, until over 50 baby chickens come home to roost. "There were chickens in the kitchen . . . / . . . There were chickens in my bed!" The pigtailed heroine who started it all ends by noting, puckishly, "I guess my
family’s lucky / that I didn’t want a cow!" (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2000
ISBN: 1-56397-800-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2000
A brief, rhythmic text combines lullaby with concept book. An African-American baby and parent are shown in the illustrations. “Wrap your arms around me, make a circle, hold me tight. I’ll take you spinning through the air, as daylight turns to night.” The cuddled child is in pajamas, the moon is “like a night-light hanging high,” while the stars and child’s face and features are more examples of the lovingly conveyed main theme. The illustrations, portholes in the center of increasingly darker borders as night descends, show the parent and child with round objects—a goldfish bowl, a round mirror, etc. Engel (The Shelf- Paper Jungle, 1994, etc.) uses watercolors to portray whimsical moonscapes and a starry sky in pleasing and memorable ways. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7614-5040-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PLB 0-688-15542-1 My Day In The Garden ($16.00; PLB $15.93; Apr.; 24 pp.; 0-688-15541-3; PLB 0-688-15542-1): The creative heroines in this gentle story of easy companionship show that rainy days can be full of fun. “Berry-picking with the birds./Lunch with the ladybugs./Under a tree for a nap,” are among the scenes; with the aid of costumes and the girls’ imaginations, the foursome create their own party, dressing up as butterflies, ladybugs, crickets, even worms. They eat, wriggle, sing, and play hide-and-seek. As darkness falls, the girls disband, and one child is seen asleep, with more dreams of the garden dancing in her head. Lobel’s idyllic illustrations are as lovely as a sunny summer afternoon, while the lyrical text demonstrates inventive simplicity. Charming. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-15541-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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