A linked pair of cherries is the star of this fable with a familiar theme: cooperation is better than competition.
Uncomfortably joined at the stalk, each cherry has his or her own ideas for what he or she wants to do. (They are fraternal twins, gendered stereotypically with bows: Boy Cherry has a bowtie, Girl Cherry a bow on her bald red head.) They are always competing: higher or lower on the swings, cooler or smarter, double or triple ice cream cones. The joined-together problem becomes a major obstacle when they join two separate teams to compete in a super sundae event, along with other familiar food items including a banana, a jar of hot fudge, a brownie, and a bunch of scoops of ice cream. Belatedly the cherries realize that they can do better helping each other out than by competing. Girl Cherry helps Boy Cherry climb the ladder to the top of the sky-high split, then boy helps girl navigate the murky pool of melted dessert to Brownie’s float, and they join forces to beat out the competition at the talent show. The illustrations consist of staged photos of fairly crude painted clay representations of various foodstuffs positioned rather stiffly in minimal sets. The sculptures have a homespun quality that sometimes makes them difficult to interpret, and the food jokes are unrelenting (“Your team is jam on my toast!”).
Bit of a sticky mess .(Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-240359-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
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 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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SEEN & HEARD
A poetic ode to women who became mothers despite the challenges they faced.
Whether navigating the roughest seas, crossing the hottest deserts, or pushing through painful brambles, the mothers in this book know their long, hard journeys were worth the effort. There might have been failure and doubt, but now that it’s all over, they know they’d “do it all over again. For you.” First-person narration expresses in metaphor the extraordinary lengths some mothers will go to achieve their dream of holding a child in their arms. Sentimental and flowery, the text is broad enough to apply to the journeys of many mothers—even though the text is gender neutral, the illustrations clearly center the mother’s experience. At times another figure, often male-presenting, is shown alongside a mother. Soft, jewel-toned illustrations peppered with textures depict families with a variety of skin tones and hair colors/textures. The assortment of mothers shown demonstrates the universality of the message, but it also contributes to the absence of a strong visual throughline. In the concluding author’s note, Serhant shares her personal struggle to conceive her child, which included fertility treatments and IVF. Ultimately, although the sentiment is lovely, the message is too abstract to be understood by children and will be better received and appreciated by parents.
Though it looks like a book for longed-for children, it’s really for their parents. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17388-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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