by Lyn Rossiter McFarland & illustrated by Jim McFarland ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2005
Mouse, seeking a small snack, stumbles onto a feast—a seemingly abandoned banquet table piled high with everything from colorful cupcakes to tasty tacos. He flexes his tiny muscles, cracks his knuckles and commences to hurl a plate, and then some food, off the table: “1 piece of cheese / 2 plump plums, 3 baby carrots”... all the way to “10 slices of chocolate cake.” Of course, as can happen in mouse books, a cat appears on the scene. Mouse hoists his heaping plate above his head and skedaddles, only to realize his mouse hole will not accommodate the large snack. Oh, well. One piece of cheese—and a flat cat smashed by a flying plate—are good enough for one small mouse anyway. While the simple story isn’t groundbreaking, preschoolers will enjoy the sneaky-mouse pacing, food-hurling and near-misses. The almost frame-by-frame, perspective-switching illustrations of the rather ratty, spindly Mouse are comical and endearing, making this a light but tasty morsel. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: March 15, 2005
ISBN: 0-374-37672-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005
Share your opinion of this book
More by Lyn Rossiter McFarland
BOOK REVIEW
by Lyn Rossiter McFarland & illustrated by Jim McFarland
BOOK REVIEW
by Lyn Rossiter McFarland & illustrated by Jim McFarland
by Owen Hart ; illustrated by Sean Julian ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2017
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
More by Owen Hart
BOOK REVIEW
by Owen Hart ; illustrated by Caroline Pedler
BOOK REVIEW
by Owen Hart ; illustrated by Judi Abbot
BOOK REVIEW
by Owen Hart ; illustrated by Caroline Pedler
by Jimmy Fallon ; illustrated by Miguel Ordóñez ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2015
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Jimmy Fallon
BOOK REVIEW
by Jimmy Fallon & Jennifer Lopez ; illustrated by Andrea Campos
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.