by Marilyn Burns & illustrated by Gordon Silveria ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1995
Here is a basic lesson in geometrical shapes disguised as entertainment. It aspires to nothing more, and just barely succeeds on its own modest level. The premise is that a busy triangle gets tired of its life and goes to a shapeshifter for an extra angle. Life as a quadrilateral is exciting for a while, but soon the protagonist requires another angle, and—the etceteras take readers through the final two-thirds of the story. Burns (The I Hate Mathematics! Book, Little, 1975, etc.) is wise enough to summarize everything past the hexagon stage. Notes on mathematics for adults working with children appear in the final pages. Newcomer Silveria takes the obvious approach to the illustrator's quandary—how to humanize an abstraction—by adding cute oval eyes and chubby cheeks. His creation comes off like a candidate for the Olympic mascot tryouts; he has a good color sense, and goes full throttle on every page. This installment of the ``Marilyn Burns Brainy Day'' series is static, simplistic, and too long by half—but finding fault with it as a work of art is like looking for character development in a Barney episode. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-590-48991-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
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by Rob Scotton & illustrated by Rob Scotton ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2005
Scotton makes a stylish debut with this tale of a sleepless sheep—depicted as a blocky, pop-eyed, very soft-looking woolly with a skinny striped nightcap of unusual length—trying everything, from stripping down to his spotted shorts to counting all six hundred million billion and ten stars, twice, in an effort to doze off. Not even counting sheep . . . well, actually, that does work, once he counts himself. Dawn finds him tucked beneath a rather-too-small quilt while the rest of his flock rises to bathe, brush and riffle through the Daily Bleat. Russell doesn’t have quite the big personality of Ian Falconer’s Olivia, but more sophisticated fans of the precocious piglet will find in this art the same sort of daffy urbanity. Quite a contrast to the usual run of ovine-driven snoozers, like Phyllis Root’s Ten Sleepy Sheep, illustrated by Susan Gaber (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-059848-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page & illustrated by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2003
Not only does Jenkins (Life on Earth, 2002, etc.) again display a genius for creating paper-collage wildlife portraits with astonishingly realistic skin, fur, and feathers, but here on alternate spreads he zooms in for equally lifelike close-ups of ears, eyes, noses, mouths, feet, and tails. Five examples of each organ thrusting in from beyond the pages’ edges for each “What do you do” question precede spreads in which the point of view pulls back to show the whole animal, with a short accompanying caption. Visual surprises abound: a field cricket’s ears are actually on its legs; a horned lizard can (and does, here) squirt blood from its eyes as a defense mechanism; in an ingenious use of page design, a five-lined skink’s breakable tail enters and leaves the center gutter at different points. Capped by a systematic appendix furnishing more, and often arresting, details—“A humpback whale can be 50 feet long and weigh a ton per foot”—this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 24, 2003
ISBN: 0-618-25628-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2003
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