Richmond offers a bland and confusing a companion to her Beautiful Brown Eyes (2009). The story mostly focuses on how much the narrator, presumably a mother or group of mothers, loves her (or their) blue-eyed children in their many moods. These moods are apparently supposed to be obvious by the children's expressions, but the faces remain relatively unchanging on many pages, often sporting near-identical smiles. On the page describing a child’s tears, the child looks startled, not sad or in pain from the shot she’s receiving. Buttons and yarn add a collage element to the smudgy full-color images but do nothing to clarify the relationship between text and pictures. The text unfolds in rhyme; an unfortunate choice, as syntax and rhythm are frequently forced: "Pretty, for sure, / those 'blues' I know, / and, oh, what they tell me / 'bout you as you grow." Overall, the impact is jarring and poorly executed. Rather than confuse a young audience, explore emotions with My Many Colored Days, by Dr. Seuss and illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (1996), or Flyaway Katie, by Polly Dunbar (2004). For books on parental love, try All the Seasons of the Year, by Deborah Lee Rose and illustrated by Kay Chorao (2010), or Who Loves the Little Lamb?, by Lezlie Evans and illustrated by David McPhail (2010). (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4022-5639-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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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 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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SEEN & HEARD
As the day draws to a close, a parent bear recalls those events shared with their child that gratified them, from observing hatching nestlings to the stars that come out at bedtime.
The scansion works and the emotions expressed are sweet, but that’s the limit of this book’s achievement. Mason is unable to create a coherent visual narrative that explicates and expands on the nonsensical text, which opens and closes with a parental address to “my fuzzy one” but in between is unclear as to who is expressing the syrupy sentiments. The sequence of sentence fragments “For special friends who made me giggle / and silly songs that made me wiggle. // For space to play, for shade to rest, / for secret spots we love the best” is illustrated in two double-page spreads with images of the young bear first playing with a young raccoon and second intently observing a caterpillar. Although that implies the young bear is speaking, the iteration of the refrain that ungrammatically brings the sequence to a close—“That’s what made me happy”—seems to bring the narration back to the parent bear. But really, giving up on sense seems to be the best one can expect from a book with a title that inartfully co-opts an adjective as a noun.
Yet another celebrity picture book that will steal sales from far, far better ones. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-288789-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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