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GOLDILOCKS AND JUST ONE BEAR

Name: GOLDILOCKS AND JUST ONE BEAR
Author: Leigh Hodgkinson
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6172-4

by Leigh Hodgkinson & illustrated by Leigh Hodgkinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 14, 2012

Cute, but readers may wonder how a bear who grew up in the cottage that Goldilocks visited could have not a...

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A sequel to the traditional fairy tale finds a bear lost in a big city.

Overwhelmed by the noise and lights, the bear ducks into Snooty Towers apartments to escape and get some much-needed rest. Some porridge would hit the spot. But one bowl is too soggy (fishbowl water—with fish!), one too crunchy (cat food) and the last is dry but doable (buttered toast). The mishaps continue in his search for a chair and a bed (a cactus and bath tub are involved, and the cat continues to be abused). The return of the penthouse-dwelling family wakes him, and he listens to their complaints as they follow his trail through the apartment to the little person’s bed where he is resting. The mommy person and the bear recognize each other and catch up over porridge before the now-grown Baby Bear finds his way back to the woods. Hodgkinson’s mixed-media artwork is the real star. The retro illustrations are done in bold blues, lime greens and pinks and are full of patterns and wonderfully scratchy and marbled textures. The blond family’s clothing, hairdos and attitudes neatly match their penthouse home, and the text plays into the artwork; “bright lights” is surrounded by lines depicting shine, while “wobbly” is written in a suitably shaky style.

Cute, but readers may wonder how a bear who grew up in the cottage that Goldilocks visited could have not a “crumb-of-a-clue” about porridge, chairs and beds. (Fractured fairy tale. 3-8)

Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7636-6172-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Nosy Crow

Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PRINCESS AND THE (GREEDY) PEA
by Leigh Hodgkinson ; illustrated by Leigh Hodgkinson

- BOOK REVIEW
GOLDILOCKS AND THE JUST RIGHT POTTY
by Leigh Hodgkinson ; illustrated by Leigh Hodgkinson

- BOOK REVIEW
A PLACE TO READ
by Leigh Hodgkinson ; illustrated by Leigh Hodgkinson

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?
edited by Eric Carle

- BOOK REVIEW
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BUG?
edited by Eric Carle

- BOOK REVIEW
MY FIRST I SEE YOU
by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)