The book demands familiarity with the films; the youngest Star Wars fans will find much to pore over.
A compendium of people, places, and things found in the Star Wars movies.
After a brief two-paragraph introduction resembling the movies’ iconic text crawl, readers meet a variety of characters, from The Phantom Menace to The Force Awakens, with a nod to Rogue One. As with other Block Book titles, this is organized in sequences of double-page spreads. The first spread shows a close-up (BB-8, for example), with the recto’s edge cut to outline it. On the following pages, the camera pulls back to a scene with other characters (Unkar Plutt, a happabore) and their vehicles (a speeder) or accessories; an icon with the planet’s name (Jakku) floats against the scene. While the shaped pages provide some page-turn ease, the visuals and text from the next spread peek through, to sometimes-confusing effect; Han Solo looks as if he is as large as the Millennium Falcon, for instance. Peskimo’s illustrations are the stars here, creating friendly heroes and softening the villains (particularly Darths Maul and Vader) with swaths of flat, muted, subtly textured colors. A final double gatefold shows sundry villains all captioned “Fear,” while the inside, labeled “Hope,” presents a gallery of human, alien, and droid heroes. Here’s hoping the 2-inch-thick binding will hold up to the enthusiasm of young fans.
The book demands familiarity with the films; the youngest Star Wars fans will find much to pore over. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2831-0
Page Count: 104
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Stronger bedtime and alien books abound in the universe of children’s literature.
A melding of fact and fiction strives to present a bedtime lesson on the solar system.
Two earthling children drift off to sleep as the book opens, and successive spreads describe the bedtime routines of sleepy little extraterrestrials on Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Endpapers underscore the title’s reference to a “race” by depicting the planets as first-through-ninth–place medals according to their respective distances from the sun. This seems to refer more to solar years instead of days with regard to the measurement of the time (how long it takes to travel around the sun, versus how long it takes for a day to pass), which muddies the bedtime theme a bit. After all, planetary days are dictated by rotation and vary in length without necessarily corresponding to the annual “race” around the sun. Backmatter entitled “Sleepy Bedtime Planet Factoids” help to ground the text in scientific facts about the planets, but this can’t fully mitigate how stumbling rhymes and twee wordplay grate—“Uranus is a gassy place. / They sleep with masks stuck to each face.” Won’s digital artwork has a retro sensibility. An isolated inclusion of a brown-skinned boy on the second spread smacks of tokenism, since all other representations of human children depict the same Caucasian boys (the children of Neptune display more diversity by comparison).
Stronger bedtime and alien books abound in the universe of children’s literature. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-38647-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nicely tuned to a preschool sense of the ridiculous. (Picture book. 3-5)
A clever—and impossibly cute—child thwarts a bumbling beast at every turn.
Every day around lunchtime, big blue Troll tries to eat the little Oliver, who dances mirthfully over hill and dale and through forest, singing a taunting tune. "You'll never catch me! / I'm much too quick—as you can see." Indeed, this seems to be true. The Oliver suddenly vanishes whenever Troll gets close. Readers will almost feel sorry for the green-eyed, snaggle-toothed monster. The pursuit goes on for many months, through winter and into the new year's thaw. One day, exhausted and demoralized, Troll decides to go back to his cave. Later, the Oliver sees no trace of Troll; it's most peculiar. As he's mixing up a cake batter, the Oliver realizes that he's won. And at that very moment, Troll leaps out of hiding via a nifty half-page turn: “CHOMP!” It turns out, though, that Olivers taste terrible, and Troll spits it out. Both sit in depressed silence until a ding from the oven awakens them, changing everything. It turns out they both love CAKE! Not since Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner has there been such a happy mismatch of inept hunter and blithe prey. Stower's ink-and-wash illustrations use white space and a hand-drawn feeling for maximum mirth. Bonus: a recipe from The Trolliver Cookbook.
Nicely tuned to a preschool sense of the ridiculous. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7956-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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