This book’s straightforward rhythm and appealing illustrations will likely make it a favorite of parents and young children.
A children’s picture book that presents a story within a story about the enduring nature of love.
West (Jake, Dad and the Worm, 2013) uses soft, realistic artwork and simple language to tell a reassuring tale. The book opens and closes with stark, black-and-white silhouette illustrations of a young girl and a baby reading a book together (“I’ll turn the pages and you can look at the pictures,” the girl says). This frames the central, rhyming text, told from a plural first-person point of view, about the many ways that a person can be loved: “We love you when you’re roaring, or as quiet as a mouse.” This main section features bright, colorful images of pleasing landscapes, animals, and a young boy in what appears to be a somewhat digitized watercolor style. The text is simple, but it has a classic feel, and it avoids flashiness and humorous touches in favor of a serious but positive tone. It also isn’t overly wordy; most pages contain just a single sentence, and this brevity will make the book work well as a read-aloud for younger children. (In this context, the young girl’s phrase, “You were a good listener!,” will ring true.) The soothing images and calm, reassuring language make it an ideal bedtime book, as well. Even if the pacing isn’t always perfect, the rhyming text throughout gives the story a pleasing rhythm, as in lines such as, “More than all the grains of sand, which we could never count. And if we add them all…we’ll love you more than that amount.” The illustrations are often beautiful, but the printing quality diminishes them, making them look a bit fuzzy and distorted. It’s not something that’s likely to bother children, but it’s still unfortunate that some of the images’ sharpness has been lost.
This book’s straightforward rhythm and appealing illustrations will likely make it a favorite of parents and young children.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988678422
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Park Place Press
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
What if the market was closed when you wanted to bake a pie? You could embark for Europe, learn Italian en route, and pick up some semolina wheat in Italy, an egg in France, kurundu bark for cinnamon in Sri Lanka, and an entire cow in England (butter) before coming home via Jamaica (sugar) and Vermont (apples). The expertly designed illustrations in which a dark-haired lass journeys by various means to these interesting places to get her groceries are lovely and lively, and the narrative, too, travels at a spritely pace. The journey is neither quite logical enough to be truly informative nor quite bizarre enough to be satisfyingly silly, while the rich, sweet recipe that's appended will take some adult assistance. Still, fun. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: May 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-83705-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1994
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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