by Mark Iacolina ; illustrated by Mark Iacolina ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 3, 2018
A long-winded and unappealing case.
A stick child investigates a disappearance.
The family parakeet is missing, and the pet cat is the prime suspect. The indignant child presses the blue kitty with more and more questions, but readers will spot the parakeet perched on the interrogator’s head from the get-go. The text is presented in undistinguished rhyming couplets: “Did you eat the parakeet? / He was right there on his tiny seat! // He was singing a tune just an hour ago. / Did you eat him? I want to know!” The scratchy illustrations are spare, colored in pastel hues and placed on a white backdrop. The child has a large round head perched on a rectangle that seems to stand in as a dress, with stick arms and legs and small ovals for hands and feet; the child is pale-skinned and has long, straight, dark hair. This picture book is a bit of a one-trick bird, tipping its hand regarding the fowl’s location too early and drawing out the discovery for far too long. The compositions don’t change enough to engage the readers, and the rhyming couplets only stretch so far, leaving readers clinging to details—changes in the cat’s expression, the pink mouse that sits in the protagonist’s pocket—for something to keep them going as the extremely slight story unfolds.
A long-winded and unappealing case. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30588-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
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by Sam McBratney ; illustrated by Anita Jeram ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 2020
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back.
Little Nutbrown Hare ventures out into the wide world and comes back with a new companion in this sequel to Guess How Much I Love You (1994).
Big Nutbrown Hare is too busy, so after asking permission, Little Nutbrown Hare scampers off over the rolling meadow to play by himself. After discovering that neither his shadow nor his reflection make satisfactory playmates (“You’re only another me!”), Little Nutbrown comes to Cloudy Mountain…and meets “Someone real!” It’s a white bunny who introduces herself as Tipps. But a wonderful round of digging and building and chasing about reaches an unexpected end with a game of hide-and-seek, because both hares hide! After waiting a long time to be found, Little Nutbrown Hare hops on home in disappointment, wondering whether he’ll ever see Tipps again. As it turns out, it doesn’t take long to find out, since she has followed him. “Now, where on earth did she come from?” wonders Big Nutbrown. “Her name is Tipps,” Little Nutbrown proudly replies, “and she’s my friend.” Jeram’s spacious, pale-toned, naturalistic outdoor scenes create a properly idyllic setting for this cozy development in a tender child-caregiver relationship—which hasn’t lost a bit of its appealing intimacy in the more than 25 years since its first appearance. As in the first, Big Nutbrown Hare is ungendered, facilitating pleasingly flexible readings.
Readers are likely to love it to the moon and back. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1747-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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by Julie Rowan-Zoch ; illustrated by Julie Rowan-Zoch ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021
Animated and educational.
A hare and a ground squirrel banter about the differences between related animals that are often confused for one another.
Jack is “no Flopsy, Mopsy, or Cottontail,” but a “H-A-R-E, hare!” Like sheep and goats, or turtles and tortoises, rabbits and hares may look similar, but hares are bigger, their fur changes color in the winter, and they are born with their eyes wide open. As the ground squirrel (not to be mistaken for a chipmunk (even though Jack cheekily calls it “Chippie”) and Jack engage in playful discussion about animals, a sneaky coyote prowls after them through the Sonoran Desert. This picture book conveys the full narrative in spirited, speech-bubbled dialogue set on expressive illustrations of talking animals. Dark outlines around the characters make their shapes pop against the softly blended colors of the desert backgrounds. Snappy back-and-forth paired with repetition and occasional rhyme enhances the story’s appeal as a read-aloud. As the story progresses, the colors of the sky shift from dawn to dusk, providing subtle, visual bookends for the narrative. One page of backmatter offers a quick guide to eight easily confused pairs, and a second turns a subsequent exploration of the book into a seek-and-find of 15 creatures (and one dessert) hidden in the desert. Unfortunately, while most of the creatures from the seek-and-find appear in poses that match the illustrations in the challenge, not all of them are consistently represented. (This book was reviewed digitally with 7-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 53.3% of actual size.)
Animated and educational. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-12506-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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