This collection of nursery rhymes amazes in its comprehensiveness; favorites like the title rhyme and “London Bridge Is Falling Down” as well as relative unknowns are included here, all illustrated in fascinating three-dimensional collage incorporating paint, clay, and other items. Over 60 rhymes appear, sometimes three to a page, resulting in a design that’s a bit crowded, but readers young and old will appreciate the sheer number. No one will get bored, even after multiple readings; it may even be more fun to open this at random and read only a few rhymes at a time than to read through from start to finish. The virtually tactile illustrations provide appealing accompaniment to the rhymes; bright colors add an especially fanciful note: Old Mother Hubbard’s dog is adorned with purple spots, and cheerful greens, yellows, pinks, and oranges feature prominently in every spread. The most successful spreads are those featuring only one rhyme: the giant, pink-cheeked, purple-spotted cow flying across a baby blue sky with an orange cat on her back on the “Hey, Diddle, Diddle” page is remarkably striking. The clay figurines and textured brushstrokes resemble folk art and suit the topic of nursery rhymes perfectly, since the rhymes themselves are a form of folklore. Nursery rhymes are perennial favorites: this compendium is more complete and more charmingly illustrated than most. (Picture book. 2-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-6754-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
There’s always tomorrow.
A lyrical message of perseverance and optimism.
The text uses direct address, which the title- and final-page illustrations suggest comes from an adult voice, to offer inspiration and encouragement. The opening spreads reads, “Tonight as you sleep, a new day stirs. / Each kiss good night is a wish for tomorrow,” as the accompanying art depicts a child with black hair and light skin asleep in a bed that’s fantastically situated in a stylized landscape of buildings, overpasses, and roadways. The effect is dreamlike, in contrast with the next illustration, of a child of color walking through a field and blowing dandelion fluff at sunrise. Until the last spread, each child depicted in a range of settings is solitary. Some visual metaphors falter in terms of credibility, as in the case of a white-appearing child using a wheelchair in an Antarctic ice cave strewn with obstacles, as the text reads “you’ll explore the world, only feeling lost in your imagination.” Others are oblique in attempted connections between text and art. How does a picture of a pale-skinned, black-haired child on a bridge in the rain evoke “first moments that will dance with you”? But the image of a child with pink skin and brown hair scaling a wall as text reads “there will be injustice that will challenge you, and it will surprise you how brave you can be” is clearer.
There’s always tomorrow. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-99437-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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