A crisp envoi from the late Alexander celebrates creativity in children while delivering a pointed message to prescriptive grown-ups. Certain that his mom would rather have an original drawing than a colored-in coloring page that his teacher forces on him, Max hides in the shrubbery outside school to create his own picture. When his four classmates see the result, they’re inspired to make unique flowers of their own—and all the moms (plus the teacher) turn out to be delighted. Working from the author’s sketches, Rumford depicts Max as a small, fierce redhead, suspends him and the other figures in white space as Alexander often did and adds a prose appreciation to go with the stylistic one. Opening and closing pages of flower paintings contributed by friends, family and associates (some of them familiar names) wrap this terse and lovely tribute to a veteran writer and illustrator whose works no self-respecting library should be without. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58089-156-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A sweet iteration of the “Big Bad Wolf Mellows Out” theme. Here, an old wolf does some soul searching and then learns to like vegetable stew after a half-frozen lamb appears on his doorstep, falls asleep in his arms, then wakes to give him a kiss. “I can’t eat a lamb who needs me! I might get heartburn!” he concludes. Clad in striped leggings and a sleeveless pullover decorated with bands of evergreens, the wolf comes across as anything but dangerous, and the lamb looks like a human child in a fleecy overcoat. No dreams are likely to be disturbed by this book, but hardened members of the Oshkosh set might prefer the more credible predators and sense of threat in John Rocco’s Wolf! Wolf! (March 2007) or Delphine Perrot’s Big Bad Wolf and Me (2006). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-58925-067-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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