by Michael Garland ; illustrated by Michael Garland ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 2017
A book whose theme of opposite personalities being best friends is a welcome, uplifting one but whose illustrations lack...
An elephant and a mouse are best friends even though they have different tastes in just about everything.
Big, an elephant, and Little, a mouse, enjoy a close friendship that includes spending lots of time together, even though they have opposite tastes. Garland’s accessibly simple, rhyming text (set in a somewhat clunky typeface) spells it out in a no-nonsense back-and-forth style: “Big likes up, Little likes down. / Little likes square, Big likes round.” The litany encompasses a truly vast number of points on which Big and Little differ. By the end of the story, Garland reveals that Big and Little, being so different, occasionally have fights, but they always make up because they realize that they “are who they are. No need for a change!” And this message of acceptance of differences is heartening and much needed. Garland’s digitally rendered illustrations, while colorful and lively, are visually discordant. Soft blending within the mouse and the elephant figures is juxtaposed against their sharp outline edges—a visually jarring look. Impressionistic backgrounds and foregrounds, too, are interspersed with sharp-edged objects as well as photorealistic ones. The overall impression is one of too many digital effects that don’t harmonize well.
A book whose theme of opposite personalities being best friends is a welcome, uplifting one but whose illustrations lack visual coherence. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-87097-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 2023
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Jimmy Fallon ; illustrated by Miguel Ordóñez ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2015
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
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