A sweet book, though it’s undermined by character choice.
A (gorilla) parent’s dream for a child.
First-person narration relates the joys and hopes a new parent feels in this offering from Cordell. “We looked upon you, impossible you, and we felt everything,” reads the text in an early spread, revealing heartfelt and earnest sentiments about parental love. This tone is undermined, however, by the painterly watercolor-and-ink illustrations of a semianthropomorphized gorilla family rather than a human family or even fully anthropomorphic animals. These gorillas live in furnished grass huts and use tools but go unclothed and walk on their knuckles. Are they gorillas in order to try to engage child readers with a text that is essentially about validating and representing parental love? Perhaps, but the juxtaposition is rather jarring. One gorilla parent is the text’s narrator/dreamer, and the dream envisions the child growing and changing, having triumphs and hardships. The child becomes a painter, and at the end of the dream, the parents stand in front of their small hut and wave goodbye as the child (now grown) leaves home with paintbrushes strapped to its back in something like a quiver. In waking life, the parents gaze at their infant in its crib and wonder “what will you dream?” and the book ends with a closing portrait of the family.
A sweet book, though it’s undermined by character choice. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4847-7340-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Delightful and unpretentious in its approach to welcoming the Sabbath.
The Schmutzy family, appropriately named for their carefree exploration of all things messy, cleans up perfectly at the end of each week for a proper Sabbath celebration.
From Sunday until Thursday, Mama and Papa Schmutzy’s brood of five play, create, and discover. They wade in “the malodorous Feldman Swamp” and bring an assortment of flora and fauna back. At home, they decorate their clothes with tomato sauce, enjoy their “blue period” with blueberries, gather earthworms in the vegetable garden and paint additional fruits on their pineapple wallpaper. Through it all, this modern Jewish Mama is unfazed, going about her motherly chores without a “tsk or tut.” But on Friday morning, her Yiddish persona comes out as she exclaims, “Oy! Look at this dirt! You’re FARSHTUNKEN, all of you! And it’s nearly SHABBOS. We can’t bring in the Sabbath smelling like COWS!” And so the clean-up begins, culminating in a wonderfully full Friday-night Shabbos dinner with an extended family of 12, followed by an early-morning Saturday walk to services. A combination of India ink, watercolor, acrylic, pencil and pastel artwork depicts the humorous chaos of a family that balances a live-and-let-live attitude with a weekly ritual and routine.
Delightful and unpretentious in its approach to welcoming the Sabbath. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2371-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A passel of fun activities—dancing, crafting, biking and dress up—are tucked into Janni's tonic tale of imagination and...
What better way to make friends than throwing a party?
Nellie Sue has a new pair of pink dancing boots, but she can't go out dancing alone. Mama suggests befriending the new girls that she sees playing on the street. Nellie Sue saddles up her pink "two-wheeled horse" and invites the three girls to go for a ride; the youngest (about Nellie Sue's age) seems interested, but her older sister says, "Not in ballet slippers." Nellie Sue is discouraged, but only for a minute; her dog Ginger gives her a great idea! She makes some pretty invitations and gets back on her horse, galloping "like the Pony Express" to ask the neighbor girls to her "Barn Dance." The whole neighborhood shows up, and Nellie Sue commences to dance. But the floor is slick and she takes a tumble, bringing the refreshments and most of the guests down with her. Ginger starts giving everybody on the floor sloppy dog kisses. It looks like Nellie Sue's party will be a disaster until that youngest girl, whose name is Anna, laughs. Finally, the ice is broken. Nellie Sue drops g’s and uses cowgirl idiom with abandon; her adherence to the cowgirl "code of honor" is endearing. Avril's line-and-watercolor cartoons keep the visual tone light.
A passel of fun activities—dancing, crafting, biking and dress up—are tucked into Janni's tonic tale of imagination and optimism . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-525-42341-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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