Next book

GOOD NIGHT, EARTH

A droll and imaginative addition to the crepuscular corpus.

Inventive book design and shifting perspectives add cozy surprises to this bedtime snoozer, originally published in Scandinavia.

“Little chimp should be asleep by now. / Mama has sung and played 73 songs / on her ukulele.” Turning half pages that act like blankets being pulled up (or down), drowsy young nappers join a family of extraterrestrials watching from very far away as various animals and animal parents go through simple or strenuous bedtime routines—or, in the case of a deceptively quiescent tarsier, get ready to leap into an all-night frolic. All (aliens included) turn out to be surrogates for Sweetie Pie, a human child, and her stuffies reluctantly snuggling down at long last…between a pair of weary parents. In Hasan-Rokem’s translation from the Swedish, the text is poetic, sly, and funny: “Look there, in the leaves! A little sloth in a hammock! / Shhh! Both she and the hammock are asleep, as usual.” Readers will see from the illustration that the “hammock” is the little sloth’s parent. Bondestam depicts human figures with beige skin, which allows some latitude for ethnic identification. Along with adding sly anthropomorphic touches to the rest of the cast, she caps the nighttime scenes with one final one of a comically frazzled family of owls barely getting through a sunrise supper of croissants and hot chocolate before collapsing. Parents of younger children will definitely relate.

A droll and imaginative addition to the crepuscular corpus. (Novelty picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: April 13, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-63206-286-4

Page Count: 46

Publisher: Yonder

Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021

Categories:
Next book

GOOD NIGHT OWL

A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end.

Something is preventing Owl from falling asleep.

Owl leans back against his white pillow and headboard. “Squeek!” says something underneath the bed. Owl’s never heard that sound before, so he fastens his pink bathrobe and answers the front door. Nobody. It must be the wind; back to bed. Bidding himself goodnight, he climbs into bed—and hears the noise again. Time after time, he pops out of bed seeking the squeaker. Is it in the cupboard? He empties the shelves. Under the floor? He pulls up his floorboards. As Owl’s actions ratchet up—he destroys the roof and smashes the walls, all in search of the squeak—so does his anxiety. Not until he hunkers down in bed under the night sky (his bed is now outdoors, because the house’s roof and walls are gone), frantically clutching his pillow, does he see what readers have seen all along: a small, gray mouse. In simple illustrations with black outlines, textured coloring, and foreshortened perspective, Pizzoli plays mischievously with mouse placement. Sometimes the mouse is behind Owl or just out of his sightline; other times, the mouse is on a solid, orange-colored page across the spread from Owl, which removes him from Owl’s scene in a rather postmodern manner. Is the mouse toying with Owl? Who knows?

A funny tale about stress and an ever upping ante, with a comforting end. (Picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: April 19, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4847-1275-7

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016

Categories:
Next book

WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND?

Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back.

Little Nutbrown Hare ventures out into the wide world and comes back with a new companion in this sequel to Guess How Much I Love You (1994).

Big Nutbrown Hare is too busy, so after asking permission, Little Nutbrown Hare scampers off over the rolling meadow to play by himself. After discovering that neither his shadow nor his reflection make satisfactory playmates (“You’re only another me!”), Little Nutbrown comes to Cloudy Mountain…and meets “Someone real!” It’s a white bunny who introduces herself as Tipps. But a wonderful round of digging and building and chasing about reaches an unexpected end with a game of hide-and-seek, because both hares hide! After waiting a long time to be found, Little Nutbrown Hare hops on home in disappointment, wondering whether he’ll ever see Tipps again. As it turns out, it doesn’t take long to find out, since she has followed him. “Now, where on earth did she come from?” wonders Big Nutbrown. “Her name is Tipps,” Little Nutbrown proudly replies, “and she’s my friend.” Jeram’s spacious, pale-toned, naturalistic outdoor scenes create a properly idyllic setting for this cozy development in a tender child-caregiver relationship—which hasn’t lost a bit of its appealing intimacy in the more than 25 years since its first appearance. As in the first, Big Nutbrown Hare is ungendered, facilitating pleasingly flexible readings.

Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back. (Picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5362-1747-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020

Categories:
Close Quickview