Inconsistent writing combines with sweet illustrations to make this a nice-enough book.
With the help of woodland creatures, Mother Mouse searches for a name for her new baby that sounds just right.
Boyd’s sweetly illustrated field mice and their forest friends greet Mother Mouse and her new baby with gifts. As each animal and gift arrives, Mother Mouse wonders if the name of the gift might also become a name for baby. After listening all day, she finally settles on a name made up of different words she’s heard throughout. Boyd includes some nice vocabulary (“maidenhair fern,” “milkweed pods”) along with some nice literary touches. Most of the animals’ names are alliterative or rhyming, such as Sadie Snail, Kiki Cat, Merle Squirrel, and even the baby’s ultimate name itself. These are nice additions for younger readers. The illustrations have a lovely, consistent color palette, evoking spring and new life. The daytime images feature a clean, cream-colored background, while the night is a deep blue, making a nice visual to mark the transition. There’s a beautiful two-page spread in which readers meet Moon, who asks about the baby’s name; in response, Mother Mouse says simply, “I’m listening for one.” This lovely moment stands out above the rest, which sometimes feature awkward internal rhymes or rhyming couplets, but only inconsistently. The final page ends the book abruptly, with nothing to signify an end to Mother Mouse’s day or the story itself.
Inconsistent writing combines with sweet illustrations to make this a nice-enough book. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1419-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
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 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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