Enticing and adorable.
Photos of endearing plush critters bring to life the adventures of an impetuous young hero.
Rumie has a harelike white head, curved ears shorter than a rabbit’s, smoothly fuzzy but not plush fur, an orange bodysuit over a firm, flexible frame, and a long, striped, tufted tail. Uncle Hawthorne, clearly of the same species, sports a smart tweed vest. Convincingly posed on a tiny bentwood bridge, Rumie regretfully sees that the stream is too low for Uncle Hawthorne’s rowboat. But a ladybug floating on a leaf sparks inspiration: a raft! Uncle is on board with the idea, and together they build a small craft, with ribbons trailing from the mast. Rumie is eager to go, and when Uncle says that life vests will be needed for their safety test tomorrow, Rumie doesn’t listen. In the morning, Uncle oversleeps, so Rumie leaves to “just check on the raft.” Rumie unties it, pushes it into the water, and jumps aboard. Excitement (“I’m sailing!”) turns to alarm at some unexpected rapids, until Uncle averts disaster. There’s no scolding or punishment, but Rumie realizes: “I think I should have waited for you this morning.” The photos are cleverly done, with objects and accessories to scale, and the pair’s enchanting home’s interior, apparently inside a hollow tree, evokes the settings of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers (1952).
Enticing and adorable. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781771476355
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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