A silly and surprising picture book that will quickly join regular rotation.
A monster looks for a snack.
Preschooler Pete is playing cars in his bedroom when a purple-furred, horned, and snaggle-toothed monster peers through the window. Pete invites the monster to play, but the monster’s intentions are made clear by the thought bubble hovering over his head: This monster wants to “EAT PETE!” Luckily for Pete, this monster is easily distracted and decides that “playing cars looked like fun.” Pete and the monster cheerfully race cars, play pirates, and build with blocks together; each time they switch activities, the monster first thinks about eating Pete and then decides to play. But this doesn’t last long: By the book’s middle, the monster does in fact eat Pete, the act presaged by a moment when the monster’s enormous, drooling face occupies the entire double-page spread just behind oblivious, smiling Pete. But after that? Playing alone is not so much fun. Rex smartly teases out the will-he, won’t-he just long enough for readers to assume it’ll never happen before shocking little ones with the deed. A happy ending awaits, but little readers will be briefly flabbergasted and quite giggly. Rex’s clean-lined cartoons are beautifully paced, the monster looming over the round-headed white boy and then pulling back again and again before a nearly wordless spread in which the monster sits, satisfied, one hand on his tummy before his final change of heart.
A silly and surprising picture book that will quickly join regular rotation. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-3880-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt.
A love song from parents to their child.
This title will seem quite similar to the many others about parents’ deep love for their children. The text is wholly composed of first-person declarations of parental love, and it’s juxtaposed with illustrations of the child with one or both parents. It’s not always clear who the “I” speaking is, and there are a few pages that instead use “we.” Most sentences begin with “I love you more” phrasing to communicate that nothing could undermine parental love: “I love you more than all the sleepless nights…and all the early, tired mornings.” The accompanying pictures depict the child as a baby with weary parents. Later spreads show the child growing up, and the phrasing shifts away from the challenges of parenting to its joys and to attempts to quantify love: “I love you more than all the blades of grass at the park…and all the soccer that we played.” Throughout, Bell’s illustrations use pastel tones and soft visual texture to depict cozy, wholesome scenes that are largely redundant of the straightforward, warm text. They feature a brown-haired family with a mother, father, and child, who all appear to be white (though the father has skin that’s a shade darker than the others’).
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0652-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Purchase for some temporary interactive Halloween fun.
Four green-faced witches fly through this durable board book looking for Halloween fun.
A turn of the notched wheel embedded in the cover page changes the sparkly stripes on a witch’s hat, cape, and broom. Three more witches join the fun inside. Though not identified by gender, all wear dresses. All the interactive elements are focused on the first witch, who wears fluffy orange hair in two pigtails. One slider simultaneously lifts a broom and plops a straight hat on top of that hair. Another slides the witch across the night sky. A second wheel shows the ingredients being added to a cauldron. A final slider magically produces three black cats. Two lines of (uncredited) rhyming text on each of the four double-page spreads hint at what the interactive element will reveal. While the text is conveniently placed in the same spot on each spread, the vocabulary is peppered with reach words for the toddler audience: “Off they swooped on whizzing brooms, / heading for the potions room.” Mice, pumpkins, spiderwebs, owls, brooms, bats, and other thematically appropriate objects and creatures scattered across the busy pages place the book firmly in the Halloween genre. Unnamed and primarily decorative, these seemingly arbitrary additions distract from the slight story thread. Toddlers will readily manipulate the five smoothly performing interactive elements; unfortunately, the text and pictures are not equally enticing.
Purchase for some temporary interactive Halloween fun. (Novelty board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4463-1
Page Count: 8
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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