Appealing.
Family...is right where we belong.
Most trolls are messy and mucky and like scaring people. The hairy troll named Timothy Limpet is different; he’s “nice and polite and tidy.” (The other trolls don’t like him.) He looks like a crazy quilt: His head is a big blue ball, his cup-shaped body has green polka dots, and his limbs sport colorful stripes. Meanwhile, there’s a little girl named Tabitha Lumpit, who’s brash and messy and loud and acts altogether like...well, you know. One day, Tabitha and Timothy, not looking where they’re going, literally bump heads. Each immediately sees that the other is quite different from what one would expect, and they get an idea—to switch places. Tabitha goes to stay with the trolls, and Timothy moves in with Tabitha’s parents. At first, everything works out well. Then Mommy and Daddy start to miss Tabitha, just as the trolls begin to miss Timothy, and both Tabitha and Timothy find being with people just like them is kind of boring. They decide to swap back and “go home, where they belonged,” and everybody lives happily ever after. Hodgkinson’s story, while hardly revolutionary, is satisfying. Design elements add much appeal, with childlike stylings and exaggerated perspectives. In a nifty touch, the text in dialogue bubbles is neatly typed for the “nice” characters and looks like clumsy block lettering for the “mucky.”
Appealing. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7101-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
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
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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