Emergent readers with tightly limited word lists are notoriously difficult to write, especially when two of the words are already firmly enshrined in the shadow of that extremely well-known cat in the striped hat. Knudsen (Dinosaur Days, not reviewed, etc.) does a credible job of creating a real story and an appealing main character, a cat named Ralph, with just a few simple words. Ralph seems to be living on his own in a big-city park in the winter, and he wants a cozy home of his own: someplace high, warm, and safe. He checks out some locations where he isn’t welcome (a baby’s pram and a squirrel family’s tree house), and then finds an ideal spot curled up on top of a bald man’s head, tied on with a striped scarf. Haley’s breezy watercolor and ink illustrations make this unlikely scenario believable, with a charming snow-covered park filled with strolling adults and children of different ethnic groups. Reading teachers may question the use of the name Ralph (with the non-decodable ph sound) and contractions at this beginning level of easy readers, as both these challenges are usually found farther along in structured reading programs. There is always a need in every library for the earliest beginning readers, and the attractive illustrations give this story extra warmth. Ralph might even find his way into story hours, paired up with that superstar cat or even with Jack Gantos’s Rotten Ralph (1976), a very different kind of cat. (Easy reader. 5-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-307-26115-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
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