A boy and his dog embark on a space adventure in this debut picture book.
Taye, a pale-skinned, dark-haired youngster, wakes to a boom and a bright light: “Taye would normally go back to sleep, but this was not an ordinary night.” He sets off with his dog to find out what amazing thing has happened. In the field near his house is now a door that opens to a stairway to the moon. There, Taye meets aliens and astronauts, having fun until he’s sleepy enough to return to bed and dream about the places he’s been. Youngsters may wonder whether Taye has been dreaming the whole time, as the ending illustration with its bright moon echoes the opening image of the boy and his pooch in a bedroom flooded with light. The soft-edged pictures by debut illustrator Senarak enrich the whimsical fantasy. They show details absent from Santigul’s straightforward tale, such as Taye’s exploration preparations. The brush-stroke style offers grounding before the more fantastic, off-planet escapades begin. Clever design elements also enhance the storytelling. On the moon, the text goes around the sides of the pages. When the house is shown, with a wall absent, heading to a horizon point, the text angles the same way along Taye’s path.
This simple, fanciful narrative will delight youngsters who already dream of the moon.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73343-875-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This companion piece to the other fairy tales Marcia Brown has interpreted (see Puss In Boots, 1952, p. 548 and others) has the smoothness of a good translation and a unique charm to her feathery light pictures. The pictures have been done in sunset colors and the spreads on each page as they illustrate the story have the cumulative effect of soft cloud banks. Gentle.
Pub Date: June 15, 1954
ISBN: 0684126761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1954
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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