Rosenberg (Roots and Flowers, 2001, etc.) and Catalanotto (The Dream Shop, 2002, etc.) team up to create a love letter from a mother and father as their adopted son heads off to college. Unfortunately, while the sophisticated blend of words and images may spark discussion, it is likely to present more questions than it answers, especially for younger children. To begin with, Catalanotto’s realistic illustrations, which add a back-story not evident in Rosenberg’s spare text, are disorienting. The title spread shows a teenager in cap and gown; the final spread shows the young man in a college dorm in front of a banner that reads “Welcome Freshmen.” And it’s only in the end that the child’s name and ethnicity are clearly revealed: a party scene shows the proud white parents holding the brown-skinned infant; behind them, a sign reads, “We Love You, Enrique!” Interior illustrations, presented in reverse chronological order, portray memorable moments in the child’s life. Along the way, Rosenberg conveys the parents’ longing, the anticipation and preparation that precedes the child’s arrival, and the events that unfold when the baby is finally born. After a phone call delivers news of the baby’s birth, Rosenberg writes, “And so we came. We flew! / Because that’s how much we wanted you.” Then, addressing the birth parents: “Somewhere in the world a / mother gave birth to you / a father gave life to you / We weren’t your first father/ and mother.” Considering the title, this unassuming passage carries insensitive undertones and flies in the face of positive adoption language. An unsatisfactory addition to the adoption oeuvre. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7613-1597-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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