Suspense looms in the air as young woodland creatures get closer and closer to big bad Grandma Wolf until it looks like their collective gooses may be cooked. Word spreads in the forest (a very lovely and lush forest as portrayed in Brown’s watercolors) that a bad old hairy wolf is living nearby. A company of animals puts aside their trepidation and goes to investigate. From outside the wolf’s house, they can see her asleep in her bed. Piglet calls out, “What’s the time, Grandma Wolf?” She replies that it’s time to get up. Each creature in turn asks the time, and each time they take a step closer to the wolf, as she scrubs the cooking pot, fetches water, sets it to boil, until finally they are very close and Grandma Wolf cries out, “Dinnertime!” The animals stand frozen, like fawns caught in the beam of a headlight, but Grandma’s only ready to serve them a vegetable stew and read them a story—guess which one. Young readers will feel a note of pleasing apprehension—mostly from Grandma’s rack of conspicuous fangs—but never enough to stir terror. The repetitions may even provoke readers to chime in, and Brown (The Scarecrow’s Hat, p. 179, etc.) has provided the rules for a game—“What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?”—that kids can play on their own. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56145-250-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
“What’s big?” asks a pleasant pink pig as he compares himself to cows, cars, trucks, streets, the neighborhood, the city, and the earth, and finally to the universe, which “makes everything seem small.” Although the concept of relative size is well taken, the expansion from self to universe is flawed by the incongruity of some of the images. The pig and the cow squeeze into a model T–type car that is stuck in the mud, but are towed by a modern tow truck into a modern city. In the final sequence, the sun seems smaller than the earth. A simple verse pattern carries the lilting text with each verse ending with the repetitive phrase “What’s bigger than . . .” Florian’s double-paged watercolor paints and colored pencil are soft and muted, sometimes too muted, particularly in background areas. Occasional flashes of humor illustrate the text as the cow and the pig travel through a city populated by animals at work and at play. It ends with an amusing image of the pig as a constellation in the universe. Not Florian’s best effort, but a good conversation-starter with a young child about comparative size. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-17125-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fox’s latest is a participation story filled with a variety of sheep. There are thin sheep and wide sheep, swing sheep and slide sheep, blue sheep and red sheep, sheep that are paired, complementing each other in some way. Only one kind seems to be missing and without a mate as the repetitious question asks, “Where is the green sheep?” Fox, a literacy consultant and reading professor, has once again produced a perfectly simple text with a patterned language and rhythm just right for toddlers experiencing the basics of life and budding readers learning to complete their sentences by looking at words and pictures together. Horacek’s clear, matching watercolor-and-pen cartoon-style drawings flawlessly render each ewe’s role, providing little ones a successful reading experience and ultimately finding the green sheep’s hiding place. Ideally easy and well-designed. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-15-204907-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
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