A little boy’s imaginary underwater submarine adventure in short, descriptive verse. Diving deeper and deeper, the boy encounters a bright, amazingly colorful ocean full of traditional and different sea life, all the while defining the unique features of each creature. “Diving with a silky seal / Darting by a dancing eel / Peering through a kelpy haze / at rainbow fish and manta rays.” Ashman includes new words and exotic fish: “Skimming over sneaky dabs / Hiding from the horseshoe crabs” and “Gliding through the wavy grass, / glimpse a busy cleaner wrasse.” When our explorer approaches danger by the confrontation of a shark, he reverses his sub and speedily returns through his previous subaqueous route, safely surfacing the waters of his toy-filled bathtub. Poetic text is lively with enough alliteration to encourage repeated recitation. Acrylic paintings in large, aquatic blues and greens accompany the multicolored animated sea creatures surrounding the youngster’s orange submarine. An amusing and equally enlightening companion to Ashman’s previous Castles, Caves, and Honeycombs (2001). (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-15-202658-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Energetic woodcuts accompany playfully simple poems as they give young readers an engaging tour of the barnyard. From the usual suspects—rooster, cow, sheep—to some of the less celebrated denizens of the farm—snake, bees, turtle—each poem varies to suit its subject. The barn cat’s verse is succinct: “Mice / had better / think twice.” The snake’s winds its way down the page in sinuous shape. At their best, Elliott’s images are unexpected and all the more lovely: The turtle “Lifts her fossil head / and blinks / one, two, three / times in the awful light.” Others are not so successful, but Meade’s illustrations give them credence: The rooster “Crows and struts. / He’s got feathers! / He’s got guts!” This rhythmic but rather opaque assertion is accompanied by an oversized rooster who dominates the foreground; eyes shut in concentration, he levitates himself with the force of his crow—the very embodiment of “guts.” Farmyard books are a dime a dozen, but this one is a worthwhile addition, for those poems that reach beyond the ordinary and for the good-natured illustrations that complement them. (Picture book/poetry. 2-5)
Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2008
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