A superficial exploration of children’s emotional landscapes.
Max has all the feelings, and it shows.
Max is a white furry moth with translucent white wings, the face of a teddy bear, and fuzzy antennae that resemble rabbit ears—older readers might mistake him for a character from the 1980s line of Care Bear Cousins. His antennae, or feelers, are extremely expressive, standing tall when he’s helped a friend, growing when he’s in trouble, or turning blue when he’s struggling with learning new things. Readers follow Max’s emotional journey, with each double-page spread dedicated to a different experience. The story/poem culminates in the notion that we are ultimately in control of our emotions: “When you have big feelers, / it is like a dance or an art. / Max can follow his feelers or / be the lead. / It’s up to Max to decide what he needs.” The plot is thin, jumping from moment to moment without introduction or resolution, and although Max is a charmingly designed character, his cuteness can’t make up for the book’s lack of substance. The story seems more like a compilation of planned illustrations for a stuffed toy than a picture book. While readers may enjoy the ultra-fuzzy character, it’s unlikely that they’ll develop any emotional connection with him despite the emphasis on his moods; the verses are shallow examinations of complex emotions expressed in trite rhyming lines. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A superficial exploration of children’s emotional landscapes. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-949515-42-8
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Phoenix Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Silvestro and Chen take a common figure of speech and transform it, literally, into a lovely expression of a universal...
Rosie has been looking forward to the first day of school for a month, practicing writing her letters and raising her hand. But the night before the big day, she begins to have second thoughts.
“I don’t feel well,” she says the next morning. “You just have butterflies in your belly,” her mother replies with a hug. And sure enough, when a girl on the school bus asks her name, a butterfly escapes from Rosie’s mouth along with the answer. Rosie’s trepidation about new experiences tugs on readers’ hearts, but as the butterflies that only she can see are released every time she participates in class, her expressions grow more confident and joyful. Finally, Rosie uses her new confidence to help another classmate who looks like she has a belly full of butterflies as well. Colorful illustrations depict children of varying skin tones with surprisingly expressive round black eyes; Rosie and her family present subtly Asian. Young readers who are worried about school will find a reassuring way to put their feelings into words, and the warm ending gives a wink to caregivers who may also find themselves feeling nervous about the first day of school.
Silvestro and Chen take a common figure of speech and transform it, literally, into a lovely expression of a universal experience. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2119-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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