Retro art, inventive typography and antic wordplay mix in this bright offering. During a lesson on palindromes, Miss Sim mortifies Bob by declaiming his palindromic status. He’s then horrified to find his home brimming with the things: Mom, Dad, Anna, even tiny Nan are so afflicted. Bob bolts, then realizes “Palindromes are really just words and there’s more than one way to say any word!” Whether kids spy his surname on family portraits, or read it emblazoned across the last double spread, they’ll laugh out loud over Robert Trebor’s fresh plight. While the premise of Bob’s freak-out is slender, the text crackles with cleverly integrated palindromes. McCauley supplies dozens more on book spines and signs. Indeed, the full-bleed art, in primary colors, white and black, more than extends the text: Horizontal, double-pointed arrows recur, defining the palindrome concept and adding a graphic frenzy to already wacky compositions. En route to Jon Agee’s tours de force, don’t miss this wow of a detour. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-8118-4328-9
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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A contemporary Native American girl follows in her grandmother’s footsteps (literally and figuratively), dancing the traditional jingle dance at the powwow. Jenna, a member of the Creek Nation in Oklahoma, dreams of dancing the jingle dance with the women of her tribe and is delighted when her grandmother tells her that she can dance with the other girls at the next powwow. But there is one problem—there won’t be enough time to order the materials to make the four rows of jingles that are attached to the dress. If Jenna wants to hear the tink, tink, tink sound that the tin jingles make, she’ll have to figure out a way to get the jingles on her own. Fortunately, Jenna is resourceful and knows just what to do. She visits great-aunt Sis, her friend Mrs. Scott, and cousin Elizabeth and borrows a row of jingles from each of them. (Jenna can only borrow one row of jingles apiece—otherwise each dress will lose its “voice.”) While the problem of finding the jingles on her own doesn’t seem challenging enough for the approbation Jenna receives at the end of the story for her resourcefulness, children will enjoy watching her figure out the solution to her problem. The watercolor illustrations clearly and realistically depict what is happening in the story. The layout of the book is straightforward—mostly double-page spreads that extend all the way to the edges of the paper. Jenna lives in what looks like a nice suburban house, the others seem solidly middle-class, and cousin Elizabeth is a lawyer. The author is deliberately showing us, it would seem, that all Native Americans are not poor or live on rundown reservations. A useful portrayal of an important cultural event in a Creek girl’s year. (author’s note, glossary) (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 30, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-16241-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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