Despite the touch-and-go artwork, the book can offer copious comfort to children with the suggestion that their closest...
Where do old toys and blankets go? Their own private island, it seems.
In gentle, rhyming verse, a blanket and a bear are presented to a baby boy who takes to them instantly. When the previously inseparable threesome are separated during an ocean voyage, the boy is bereft. Meanwhile, the blanket and bear set off to find their owner, discovering instead a land where lost objects like them enjoy the island life. In a twist some won’t see coming, the blanket and bear initially reject the lost-toy paradise, only to return to it when it is clear that their human really has outgrown them. It ends, “Now think for a minute / of the toys you once knew. / Are they now on that island, / telling stories of you?” Evidently meaning to soothe fretful children who’ve been separated from their best beloved objects, Kelly’s text, his debut, is quite effective. Tanaka’s artistic style, on the other hand, only really takes off when blanket and bear are on their own, and the humans, painted with heavy-lidded doe eyes, are little more than a distant memory. Only then do the soft acrylics soar, as capable in their depictions of sun-drenched landscapes as they are in those of the threadbare, split seams of a much-loved toy’s backside.
Despite the touch-and-go artwork, the book can offer copious comfort to children with the suggestion that their closest childhood friends have found second lives elsewhere. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25681-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A gentle adventure that sets the stage for future quests.
A lonely prince gains a friend for a quest to find a missing jewel.
Prince Lucas of Wrenly has everything a boy could possibly want—except a friend. His father has forbidden him to play with the village children for reasons of propriety. Adventure-seeking Lucas acquires peasant clothes to masquerade as a commoner and make friends, but he is caught out. His mother, the queen, persuades the king to allow him one friend: Clara, the daughter of her personal dressmaker. When the queen’s prized emerald pendant goes missing, Lucas and Clara set off to find it. They follow the jewel as it changes hands, interviewing each temporary owner. Their adventure cleverly introduces the series’ world and peoples, taking the children to the fairy island of Primlox, the trolls’ home of Burth, the wizard island of Hobsgrove and finally Mermaid’s Cove. By befriending the mermaids, Lucas and Clara finally recover the jewel. In thanks, the king gives Clara a horse of her own so that she may ride with Lucas on their future adventures. The third-person narration is generally unobtrusive, allowing the characters to take center stage. The charming, medieval-flavored illustrations set the fairy-tale scene and take up enough page space that new and reluctant readers won’t be overwhelmed by text.
A gentle adventure that sets the stage for future quests. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-9691-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
It’s tough to walk the plank and leave beloved captains behind; this may make the transition a little easier.
An imaginative pirate preschooler has a hard time adjusting to a new captain in kindergarten.
Not only is beloved preschool teacher Cap’n Chu not the captain of the kindergarten ship, but it doesn’t even sail the seas—it’s a spaceship! This is too much for pirate Emma to take, and she falls back to reboarding the preschool ship: “Pirates don’t go to kindergarten!” Despite repeated efforts on the parts of Cap’n Chu, new teacher Cap’n Hayes, and a fellow kindergartener, Emma continues to cling to Cap’n Chu until she gets the reassurance she needs that her former teacher will miss her too but will always be available for a visit. With that, space pirate Emma finally reports to her new ship. Kaban’s digital illustrations go to town with the metaphor, depicting school as a mix of reality and imagination: Emma swims, wooden cutlass in her teeth, back to the preschool room. Emma’s portrayed with a peg leg in one picture, and the kindergarten guinea pig’s fur makes it look like it wears an eye patch. Otherwise, the pirate trope is limited to bandannas and striped shirts. Emma presents white; the other students are diverse; Cap’n Chu presents Asian; and Cap’n Hayes has brown skin and white hair. Unfortunately, awkward renderings of her head and face may remind readers of a monkey’s.
It’s tough to walk the plank and leave beloved captains behind; this may make the transition a little easier. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9275-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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