A well-illustrated, beautifully written tale of encouragement for budding gardeners.
One little girl understands that urban spaces need tender loving care.
When a little black girl with her hair in two puffballs looks at her city street, she sees people who rarely slow down enough to imagine the possibilities of beauty around them. But she does. Faithfully including her stuffed panda, she plants a seed in a tin can. When the can falls off the windowsill and the seedling takes root in a vacant lot, she watches it grow, and then the other seedlings that spread around it. When she must leave for a while, she charges her panda with tending the plants. Upon her return, she discovers a surprising number of good things that have happened in her absence. Inspired by a true story of a stuffed bear found in what has become the Pacific Street Brooklyn Bear’s Community Garden, this tale of urban renewal shows how one person with an imagination, a little dirt, and a few seeds can transform a concrete village into something beautiful. Oliver’s endpapers depict maps of the garden site—the front endpapers sans garden and the rear ones featuring colorful flowers on several street corners. Throughout the illustrations, the background remains black, dark gray, or dark green, but as the garden grows, the darkness becomes less noticeable as the garden takes over the block and the blue sky appears above it.
A well-illustrated, beautifully written tale of encouragement for budding gardeners. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-31481-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Imprint
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
A thoughtful role model for aspiring inventors.
In this collaboration from mother/daughter duo Corrigan and Corrigan Lichty, a youngster longs to quit the soccer team so she can continue dreaming up more inventions.
Marianne, a snazzily dressed young maker with tan skin, polka-dot glasses, and reddish-brown hair in two buns, feels out of place on the pitch. Her soccer-loving dad signed her up for the team, but she’d much rather be home tinkering and creating. One day she feigns illness to get out of practice (relying on a trick she learned from the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and uses her newfound time to create a flying machine made from bath towels, umbrellas, cans, and more. Eventually, her dad catches wind of her deception, and she tells him she prefers inventing to playing soccer. Immediately supportive, he plops a pot on his head and becomes Marianne’s tinkering apprentice. Told in lilting rhymes, the story resolves its conflicts rather speedily (Marianne confesses to hating soccer in one swift line). Though the text is wordy at times, it’s quite jaunty, and adults (and retro-loving kids) will chuckle at the ’80s references, from the Ferris Bueller and Dirty Dancing movie posters in Marianne’s room to the name of her dog, Patrick Swayze. True to Marianne’s creative nature, Sweetland surrounds her with lots of clutter and scraps, as well as plenty of bits and bobs. One never knows where inspiration will strike next.
A thoughtful role model for aspiring inventors. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593206096
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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