Soft watercolor illustrations and soothing rhymes encourage baby to rise, soar, laugh and shine. Adapted from a Mother Goose poem, this exhortation delivers hushed good wishes while emphasizing character traits that make for a happy life. Children should shine “like the firefly who glows / no matter how the darkness grows.” Love’s language lulls using a rhyme scheme and syllabic stresses that establish a comforting cadence, much like a rocking chair’s gentle beat. Her melodic messages may, however, exceed the scope of a tiny child’s understanding. Sometimes the language grows so sentimental it becomes clunky and a bit sappy: “From our arms you’ll go / unfurling like a butterfly….” Van Lieshout’s wonderfully saturated watercolors achieve greater success expressing parental love and the promise of a life well lived. Loose, self-assured black brushstrokes appear on swaths of graduated color, carving out shapes (horses, dogs, flowers, ducks) with economy. Fireflies blink, doves coo, a hound shakes his jowls. While words melt away into simple rhythms, the atmospheric artwork pinpoints ineffable feelings—the sense of freedom brought on by a breeze, the possibility invoked by starlit sky. (Picture book. 1-3)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-24753-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver.
The farmyard's chickens experience Halloween.
A round, full moon shines in the sky, and the chickens of Boynton's barnyard are feeling “nervous.” Pumpkins shine “with flickering eyes,” witches and wizards wander the pastures, and one chicken has seen “a mouse of enormous size.” It’s Halloween night, and readers will delight as the chickens huddle together and try to figure out what's going on. All ends well, of course, and in Boynton's trademark silly style. (It’s really quite remarkable how her ranks of white, yellow-beaked chickens evoke rows of candy corn.) At this point parents and children know what they're in for when they pick up a book by the prolific author, and she doesn't disappoint here. The chickens are silly, the pigs are cute, and the coloring and illustrations evoke a warmth that little ones wary of Halloween will appreciate. For children leery of the ghouls and goblins lurking in the holiday's iconography, this is a perfect antidote, emphasizing all the fun Halloween has to offer.
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7611-9300-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to.
This simplified version of Diesen and Hanna’s The Pout-Pout Fish (2008) is appropriate for babies and toddlers.
Brief, rhyming text tells the story of a sullen fish cheered up with a kiss. A little pink sea creature pokes his head out of a hole in the sea bottom to give the gloomy fish some advice: “Smile, Mr. Fish! / You look so down // With your glum-glum face / And your pout-pout frown.” He explains that there’s no reason to be worried, scared, sad or mad and concludes: “How about a smooch? / And a cheer-up wish? // Now you look happy: / What a smile, Mr. Fish!” Simple and sweet, this tale offers the lesson that sometimes, all that’s needed for a turnaround in mood is some cheer and encouragement to change our perspective. The clean, uncluttered illustrations are kept simple, except for the pout-pout fish’s features, which are delightfully expressive. Little ones will easily recognize and likely try to copy the sad, scared and angry looks that cross the fish’s face.
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-374-37084-8
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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