The love is palpable in these pages, and adults and children will surely talk about their own ways of loving after sharing...
Adult animals describe how they show their love for their little ones.
From hugging and kissing to singing and snuggling, these are activities that will be familiar to most children, albeit ones that most animals do not engage in. Adorable animals in pastel-colored pencil-and-gouache pictures act out their love for one another. Though gently anthropomorphized in behavior, these animals are otherwise depicted realistically, unclothed and in nature. “I hide you. / I tease you. // I find you. / I squeeze you,” is depicted with adult-child foxes playing hide-and-seek. Though not all the “verbs” are action words per se, children will have no trouble understanding when the picture shows an adult bear running after a cub, then that same duo hugging in the grass while the text reads “I chase you. / I slow you.” A turn of the page shows the cub on the grown bear’s back reaching for apples in a tree: “I lift you. / I grow you.” Not all are as easy as this, though, as with the two swallows that “sway” and “swing” while flying. The final spreads go from a fawn’s shy meeting with a young child in a blue dress to that child and an adult woman holding and loving each other. Both have brown hair and are white.
The love is palpable in these pages, and adults and children will surely talk about their own ways of loving after sharing this. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8895-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A warm and welcome story for emerging readers and their families.
Pumpkins star in this family-centered early reader.
Sketched in rhyming, easy-to-read couplets, this familiar autumn setting is made even warmer by the sweet family that is making a trip to the pumpkin farm. “Sunny day. Pack a lunch. / In the treetops squirrels munch.” So begins the story of a black mother and father and their young son and daughter. They find their special pumpkins and return home for carving, just in time for trick-or-treating. Mother and father are shown walking hand in hand or gently guiding their youngsters, who are very excited to pick out the perfect gourd. Read aloud, the predictable rhyme scans well, making this a book for emerging readers to read over and over, gaining confidence each time. The full-color illustrations, full of oranges and yellows, match the words, providing important visual cues. Little ones will laugh when the younger brother initially finds a huge pumpkin and rolls it over the hill like a bowling ball. “Thump! Thump! Thump! Then… / Uh-oh!” Eventually, he finds one just the right size for carving. Children of color are remarkably absent in the easy-reader stacks, so it’s an especially welcome treat to see them in this rural setting. Preschool and kindergarten teachers will want to add this to their collections.
A warm and welcome story for emerging readers and their families. (Early reader. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51341-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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