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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though it looks like a book for longed-for children, it’s really for their parents.
A poetic ode to women who became mothers despite the challenges they faced.
Whether navigating the roughest seas, crossing the hottest deserts, or pushing through painful brambles, the mothers in this book know their long, hard journeys were worth the effort. There might have been failure and doubt, but now that it’s all over, they know they’d “do it all over again. For you.” First-person narration expresses in metaphor the extraordinary lengths some mothers will go to achieve their dream of holding a child in their arms. Sentimental and flowery, the text is broad enough to apply to the journeys of many mothers—even though the text is gender neutral, the illustrations clearly center the mother’s experience. At times another figure, often male-presenting, is shown alongside a mother. Soft, jewel-toned illustrations peppered with textures depict families with a variety of skin tones and hair colors/textures. The assortment of mothers shown demonstrates the universality of the message, but it also contributes to the absence of a strong visual throughline. In the concluding author’s note, Serhant shares her personal struggle to conceive her child, which included fertility treatments and IVF. Ultimately, although the sentiment is lovely, the message is too abstract to be understood by children and will be better received and appreciated by parents.
Though it looks like a book for longed-for children, it’s really for their parents. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17388-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A particularly soppy, sloppy addition to an already-overstuffed genre.
A bear cub gets a load of lyrical loving from a lumbering parent in this nature walk.
Expressed in stumbling rhyme—“I love you more than trees / love to change with every season. / I love you more than anything. / I cannot name just one reason”—Benson’s perfervid sentiments accompany scenes of bear and cub strolling through stands of birch, splashing into a river to watch (just watch) fish, and, in a final moonlit scene, cuddling beneath starry skies. Foxes, otters, and other animal parents and offspring, likewise adoring, make foreground cameos along the way in Lambert’s neatly composed paper-collage–style illustrations. Since the bears are obvious stand-ins for humans (the cub even points at things and in most views is posed on two legs), the gender ambiguity in both writing and art allow human readers some latitude in drawing personal connections, but that’s not enough to distinguish this uninspired effort among the teeming swarm of “I Love You This Much!” titles.
A particularly soppy, sloppy addition to an already-overstuffed genre. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68010-022-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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