by Margaret Wise Brown & illustrated by Daniel Kirk ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 1995
For those unfamiliar with Brown's 1960 work, illustrated by Clement Hurd originally and welcomed in these pages, it is a book in verse—half of it rhymed, half not—about digging. The first pages, devoted to animal and human diggers, are written in a simple, repetitive style, like children's counting games. The text then shifts into a more elevated mode, as an unstoppable steam shovel moves from city to country and through a mountain, building a railroad. This steam shovel is the hero of the story, and the moral is: There's nothing it can't do. Both the industrial theme and its heroic overtones ("And then came the big digger made by a man...") are reminiscent of socialist realism. Kirk's oil illustrations, in perfect balance with the text, follow a parallel development, beginning with close-ups of toy-like animals, and moving to anonymous workers in sweeping landscapes. These landscapes—multi-colored and painstakingly detailed—take in an enormous amount of geography in the background, while the steam shovel or the train in the foreground reach gigantic proportions. However, their epic breadth—of man's building abilities and the unlimited possibilities of the future—has a distinctive softness, both in the shapes and colors used. It is technology with a human face in this utterly modern revisitation of a classic—even as it blithely bypasses ecological concerns. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: April 10, 1995
ISBN: 0-7868-0006-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1995
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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
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SEEN & HEARD
by Audrey Wood & illustrated by Bruce Wood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004
This charming, colorful counting tale of ten little fish runs full-circle. Although the light verse opens and closes with ten fish swimming in a line, page-by-page the line grows shorter as the number of fish diminishes one-by-one. One fish dives down, one gets lost, one hides, and another takes a nap until a single fish remains. Then along comes another fish to form a couple and suddenly a new family of little fish emerges to begin all over. Slick, digitally-created images of brilliant marine flora and fauna give an illusion of underwater depth and silence enhancing the verse’s numerical and theatrical progression. The holistic story bubbles with life’s endless cycle. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63569-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
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by Audrey Wood ; illustrated by Don Wood
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