by Linda Ashman ; illustrated by Jane Dyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016
Simply beautiful.
Echoing Ecclesiastes, Ashman explores ordinary miracles through the seasons.
“A cloud knows how to rain. / The thunder, how to boom. // A bulb knows when it’s time to sleep / and when it’s time to bloom.” The gentle rhymes continue as the pages turn, the seasons changing from spring to summer, then fall to winter. Seeds sprout, lambs bleat, waves tumble to the shore, swallows migrate, oak leaves fall, bears hibernate, and hares change to their winter coats. “And—not so very long ago, / on a moonlit night— / you knew how to tell me / that the time was finally right. // The days know how to march along / no matter what we do. / And I know how to love you. / No one taught me… // I just knew.” Ashman’s poetic verses are perfectly complemented by Dyer’s watercolor, acrylic, pencil, and gouache illustrations, which portray the natural world realistically, from the eyelashes on the lamb and the fuzz on the bee to the needles on the evergreen. A curly-haired blond cherub with wonderfully chubby pink cheeks is the focus, enjoying the wonders of nature. When the thunder booms and the waves crash, mother is there to soothe and protect, love, and provide a lap for reading this very book.
Simply beautiful. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-168958-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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by Jennifer Ward ; illustrated by Steve Jenkins ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2014
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers.
Echoing the meter of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Ward uses catchy original rhymes to describe the variety of nests birds create.
Each sweet stanza is complemented by a factual, engaging description of the nesting habits of each bird. Some of the notes are intriguing, such as the fact that the hummingbird uses flexible spider web to construct its cup-shaped nest so the nest will stretch as the chicks grow. An especially endearing nesting behavior is that of the emperor penguin, who, with unbelievable patience, incubates the egg between his tummy and his feet for up to 60 days. The author clearly feels a mission to impart her extensive knowledge of birds and bird behavior to the very young, and she’s found an appealing and attractive way to accomplish this. The simple rhymes on the left page of each spread, written from the young bird’s perspective, will appeal to younger children, and the notes on the right-hand page of each spread provide more complex factual information that will help parents answer further questions and satisfy the curiosity of older children. Jenkins’ accomplished collage illustrations of common bird species—woodpecker, hummingbird, cowbird, emperor penguin, eagle, owl, wren—as well as exotics, such as flamingoes and hornbills, are characteristically naturalistic and accurate in detail.
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers. (author’s note, further resources) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2116-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
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by Aaron Reynolds ; illustrated by Peter Brown ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 2022
Chilling in the best ways.
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When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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