Children of mixed marriages are about to find an unlikely ally in their cutlery drawers. Spork stands out. With a spoon for a mum and a fork for a dad, Spork is simultaneously too round and too pointy to fit in. Time and again he’s passed over at the dinner table. That is, until the day a “messy thing” joins the family and everyone sees that when it comes to managing its baby food only a true spork will do. While some picture-book tales have difficulty promoting the “different can be good” message without slipping into deep didactism, Maclear’s text feels nearly effortless. The inanimate-object identification also pairs brilliantly with Arsenault’s melding of mixed media and digital art. Against the mostly black-and-white images, the frenzied red globs of the baby’s food explode off the printed page. Immediate comparisons are bound to be made to Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Spoon (illustrated by Scott Magoon, 2009), but any good kitchen has room for both. A sublime little parable. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-55337-736-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Ready to fight boredom in a single bound, at least for a few minutes.
A small blond boy describes the many ways his nebbishy dad is a superhero.
From super snoring to super breakfasts (“toast with chocolate, and fruit, ice cream, and cake!”), this dad makes everything fun, playing dinosaurs, lifting and carrying his son, and building him an amazing (but rickety) wooden castle (not without a thumb injury, though, but he meant to do that!). These things might not seem like superhero deeds to most readers, and the narrator sees that question coming. He explains about the noises he hears at night in his room and how his dad comes in to rescue him with the flick of a light switch and his presence. “ ‘Superhero Dad,’ I say, / ‘you are the best by miles!’ / My dad says, / ‘I’m no Superhero,’ / then he stops and smiles. / ‘But I know a Superhero / who is brave and kind and fun. Who is it? // Why, it’s you! You are my SUPERHERO SON!’ ” It’s a sweet concept, but the execution is a little off. Knapman’s rhythm sometimes stumbles in his rhyming verses. Berger’s digital illustrations are filled with the bright colors that scream comics, though there aren’t as many sound effect balloons as one might expect from a superhero story. Both characters are white.
Ready to fight boredom in a single bound, at least for a few minutes. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8657-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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