A new perspective on the “arrival of spring” theme best suited to blond, pink-skinned readers.
Bauer’s imaginative first-person romp puts (some) readers right into the story, inviting them to journey with the animals in the moonlight to welcome spring.
Under the eaves of a homey (and nicely untidy instead of spic-and-span) house, “you,” pictured as an androgynous blond, Caucasian child, are startled by some noises and must investigate. Stepping outside, you meet a bear who says, “It is time….Come with me.” You are kept wondering what it is time for as more noises follow the first ones, and animals and plants and even the breeze join the bear’s chorus that it is indeed time. Curiosity battles fear as more and more animals join the hand-in-hand parade to an unknown destination, the noises growing ever louder. Readers may start to feel their own curiosity fading in the lengthy setup to an over-too-quickly climax: A gigantic egg cracks open to spill out all things spring. Still, the text is at times lyrical and calming: “Cold mud sucks at your feet. / The moon is ice. / Even so, traveling with a bear / is rather nice….” Shelley’s India ink–and-watercolor illustrations are charmingly detailed if ethnically limiting in their representation of “you.” His animals are gentle and friendly, and the forest is a wonderfully textured place that harbors nothing scary.
A new perspective on the “arrival of spring” theme best suited to blond, pink-skinned readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2952-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories.
What does Annie want to be?
As career day approaches, Annie wants to keep her job choice secret until her family sees her presentation at school. Readers will figure it out, however, through the title and clues Tadgell incorporates into the illustrations. Family members make guesses about her ambitions that are tied to their own passions, although her brother watches as she completes her costume in a bedroom with a Mae Jemison poster, starry décor, and a telescope. There’s a celebratory mood at the culminating presentation, where Annie says she wants to “soar high through the air” like her basketball-playing mother, “explore faraway places” like her hiker dad, and “be brave and bold” like her baker grandmother (this feels forced, but oven mitts are part of her astronaut costume) so “the whole world will hear my exciting stories” like her reporter grandfather. Annie jumps off a chair to “BLAST OFF” in a small illustration superimposed on a larger picture depicting her floating in space with a reddish ground below. It’s unclear if Annie imagines this scene or if it’s her future-self exploring Mars, but either scenario fits the aspirational story. Backmatter provides further reading suggestions and information about the moon and four women astronauts, one of whom is Jemison. Annie and her family are all black.
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-88448-523-0
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
This pleasant look at gardening in a city setting reflects a growing trend.
Several inner-city children work together to plant seeds and cultivate their own gardens, transforming their little “anywhere farms” into a lush, green community garden covering a vacant city lot.
A pink-cheeked little girl in overalls receives a single seed from a helpful tan-skinned neighbor on the title page, and she then inspires a flurry of gardening in her neighborhood with children and adults of different ethnicities joining in, including a white boy who uses a wheelchair. The bouncy, rhyming text conveys the basic requirements of growing plants from seeds as well as suggesting a wide variety of unusual containers for growing plants. Several leading questions about the plant growth cycle are interspersed within the story, set in large type on full pages that show a seed gradually sprouting and growing into a huge sunflower on the final, wordless page. The joyful text makes growing flowers and vegetables seem easy, showing plants spilling out of alternative containers as well as more traditional raised beds and the concluding, large garden plot. The text focuses on the titular concept of an “anywhere farm,” without differentiating between farms and gardens, but this conceit is part of the amusing, rollicking tone. Detailed, soft-focus illustrations in mixed media use an autumnal palette of muted green, peach, and tan that don’t quite match the buoyant flavor of the cheerful text.
This pleasant look at gardening in a city setting reflects a growing trend. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7499-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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