Adults will recognize a spot-on portrayal of children’s imagination games, while kids will recognize the underwater,...
Newcomers and devoted fans alike will cheer for clever, likable siblings Charlie and Lola in their newest outing.
Charlie and pal Marv want solitude for tracking “strange and tricky creatures,” but younger sister Lola interferes at every step: “Lola stepped on our spaceship. We had to walk back to Earth.” When the boys concoct an invisibility potion (“pink milk, a tiny drop of banana, and a secret invisible ingredient”), Lola cunningly feeds it to imaginary friend Soren Lorenson. Child has her own magic potion here: Atop her appealing mixed-media spreads of collaged line drawings, fabric patterns and graph paper, she now adds invisible Soren Lorenson. While Charlie, Lola and Marv (and Soren) look for creatures, readers have the joy of looking for Soren, whose glossy but uncolored outline can only be glimpsed by tipping the book until the light hits just so. The four of them play together, engrossed—under Lola’s direction—until they catch “the most strange and terrifyingly tricky creature in the universe” and have tea with him. Text bounces around and changes and typeface and font size.
Adults will recognize a spot-on portrayal of children’s imagination games, while kids will recognize the underwater, outer-space and mountainous territories that their homes become every day through play. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5347-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.
A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.
Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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