Perhaps the animals should have decided on a costume party instead of a “come-as-you-are” soiree. The irrepressible Pfister’s (Rainbow Fish to the Rescue, not reviewed, etc.) new outing plays peekaboo with animals’ faces as they get ready for a party by worrying over their looks. The story circles through the anxious participants as they long for features they admire on other animals. Lion wants a toucan’s beak, elephant wants to hop like a kangaroo, and all the rest of them cover more fashion anxieties than you’d find at a typical school dance. But of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in the end, each is convinced to show up in his own natural glory. Pfister uses die-cut pages to humorously show the mix-and-match fantasies. His thematically colored illustrations are soft and simply highlighted with the texture of canvas board coming through. Young children are subtly reassured by the repetition of the natural faces stamped quietly in the background of each page and listening to the repetitions of language in the storytelling. There couldn’t be any more to enhance the package. In addressing one of childhood’s basic insecurities, Pfister has produced an engaging work which children and adults will raptly appreciate “just the way it is.” (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7358-1615-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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