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HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Loving—but a bit puzzling.

A birthday tribute from mother to child.

Second-person point of view aligns readers with the direct address to “you” as a maternal voice recalls pregnancy, the birth of her child, and early childhood milestones, then anticipates the future. Opening and closing illustrations of an unmentioned, semianthropomorphic cat and dog detract from the interaction of words and pictures, since their relationship to the narrative is unclear. The opening text reads, “Once a year, / every year, a special day comes around.” Readers may wonder why the illustrations accompanying those lines are of a cat holding a candle and then a dog scratching its ear. In the third spread, however, a picture of a full-term fetus curled up against a womblike, rounded background plainly evokes the text’s statement about “wondering when you were going to come out of my tummy.” Other spreads feature the baby (who, like its mother, has dark hair and peachy skin) at various stages of development: nursing, learning to crawl, and then walking and running. Spare text, translated from Japanese, is loving and celebratory, while soft illustrations with minimal backgrounds provide an ideal aesthetic match. When the text shifts from concrete representations of the baby’s development to say “One day you will fly away,” the art offers a literal interpretation and shows the child flying against a blue background, which seems out of step with the real-world mother and child depiction.

Loving—but a bit puzzling. (Picture book. 2-5)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-940842-20-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Museyon

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017

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FIVE BLACK CATS

For toddlers unafraid of typical Halloween imagery.

A troop of cats traverse a spooky landscape as they make their way to a party hosted by ghosts.

Each double-page spread shows the felines’ encounters with the likes of an owl, jack-o’-lanterns or a bat. One or two of these creepy meetings may be too abstract for the youngest readers, as the cats hear eerie noises with no discernible source on the page. The text, which consists of one rhyming couplet per scene, mostly scans despite a couple of wobbles: “Five black cats get a bit of a scare / As the flip-flapping wings of a bat fill the air.” The sleek, slightly retro art, likely created using a computer, depicts the cats cavorting at night through a shadowy cityscape, the countryside and a haunted house; they may scare some toddlers and delight others. A brighter color palette would have given the project a friendlier, more universal appeal. Luckily, the well-lit, final party scene provides a playful conclusion.

For toddlers unafraid of typical Halloween imagery. (Board book. 2-4)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-58925-611-8

Page Count: 22

Publisher: Tiger Tales

Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014

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GOODNIGHT TRAIN HALLOWEEN

From the The Goodnight Train series

All aboard for a spooktacularly sleepy ride!

The goodnight train is back for a not-so-scary fourth installment.

The nighttime locomotive travels through an autumnal landscape that’s bursting with Halloween tropes. As in the previous stories, bed-shaped cars are hooked up for a train ride; here, three diverse children are dressed in their Halloween finest as a skeleton, a princess, and a bee. Fans of the series will find the usual perks of a solid rhyme scheme, additional words and sounds peppering the illustrations, and pages of yawning creatures signaling that it’s time for bed. Those unfamiliar with the series will also find the book amusing, but readers who really love Halloween—or spooky things like bats, ghosts, and black cats—will enjoy it the most. As with the other installments in this series, educators and librarians will find this useful for seasonal book displays and storytimes but will probably keep it out year-round because it checks many of the boxes that signal a solid addition to any board-book library. Die-cut circles of various sizes are sprinkled across the double-page spreads, giving caregivers a chance to test young readers’ predictive skills while providing small hints at what’s to come. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

All aboard for a spooktacularly sleepy ride! (Board book. 2-5)

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-3586-2607-7

Page Count: 12

Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022

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