Bauer’s (Jason’s Bears, p. 627, etc.) latest effort is a sentimental tribute to motherhood, both her own and her daughter’s. She expresses in loving and poetic words her emotions on the birth of her own child and then her feelings about the birth of that child’s son, her grandchild. Borrowing from the fairy-tale tradition of “Once upon a time,” she tells her own story as “Long ago, when rain was wet, and the moon waxed and waned” her daughter “sprouted like a mushroom in the secret dark.” That daughter grew and “Then . . . a little while ago, when elephants were large and hives dripped honey,” another baby “grew inside my heart.” “My grandson . . . welcome to the world.” Other language is evocative, likening the baby in the womb to blooming “like fragrant bread filling an oven.” The phrases describing behavior when her daughter was born—“I held her, I rocked her, I counted her fingers and kissed her nose”—are repeated after the birth of her grandson and will resonate with new mothers and grandmothers. Rossi, in her debut as a children’s-book illustrator, creates gentle, soft pastels that fill the pages with the light and color of the natural world and convey the mood and the wonder of the miracle of birth more effectively than the words. A beautifully illustrated celebration of birth. (Picture book. 1-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-82272-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday.
Animal parents declare their love for their offspring in alphabetical order.
Each page displays an enormous capital letter, one line of verse with the keyword capitalized, and a loving nonhuman parent gazing adoringly at their baby. “A is for Always. I always love you more. / B is for Butterfly kisses. It’s you that I adore.” While not named or labelled as such, the A is also for an alligator and its hatchling and B is for a butterfly and a butterfly child (not a caterpillar—biology is not the aim of this title) interacting in some way with the said letter. For E there are an elephant and a calf; U features a unicorn and foal; and X, keyed to the last letter of the animal’s name, corresponds to a fox and three pups. The final double-page spread shows all the featured creatures and their babies as the last line declares: “Baby, I love you from A to Z!” The verse is standard fare and appropriately sentimental. The art is cartoony-cute and populated by suitably loving critters on solid backgrounds. Hearts accent each scene, but the theme of the project is never in any doubt.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2095-6
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers.
A board-book ode to parental love as old as the dinosaurs.
A line of text on the left of each spread reads like a dinosaur-themed valentine that a third grader might choose, with punishingly punny wordplay that incorporates dinosaur-related words. On the facing page a dinosaur pair—a baby and an adult—gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes against whimsical, pastel-hued prehistoric-ish backgrounds. In smaller print, in all caps, at the bottom of the left page is the scientific name for the dinosaur referenced by the text and picture followed by a helpful phonetic pronunciation guide. White-outlined footprints appear next to their names, though the white is sometimes difficult to see against the pastel pages. Ten of the best-known dinosaurs are included. Twisting the dinosaur names to fit the loving sentiments succeeds some of the time but more often results in tortured text, well beyond the understanding of the board book audience. The line accompanying two hugging velociraptors, for instance, is just confusing: “Wrap-TOR arms around me, / with you I’ll always stay.” Others are just plain clumsy: “I-wanna-GUANODON you kisses, / I truly just adore you.” Very young children, even those fascinated by dinosaurs, will not get it. Older dinosaur fans will be put off by the babyish format.
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2295-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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