Parents looking for an engaging story to share with a new big brother or sister will do well to skip this one and choose...
In rhyming verse, dinosaur parents review with an older sibling the rules of life with a new baby in the house.
In this preachy, didactic offering, a small dinosaur is reminded to be quiet upon awakening in the morning so as not to wake the new baby and not to play rough or snatch away toys. This occupies the first half of the book. The most entertaining and positive pages follow, in which the parents encourage the little dinosaur to teach the baby new things, like how to stomp and roar. They quickly return, however, to their tiresome admonitions, warning the child to be quiet at bedtime. The illustrations are bold, expressive and, in some instances, endearing, but overall, they work to emphasize the negative tone of the text. For instance, the only page spread that is not part of the verse features a big, angry-looking dinosaur mama glaring at a chastened child while the baby screams in the bassinette. The word “shhhhhh!” is scrawled in large letters across the right-hand page.
Parents looking for an engaging story to share with a new big brother or sister will do well to skip this one and choose something with a little spunk—like Jacqueline Woodson and Sophie Blackall’s Pecan Pie Baby (2010) or Marla Frazee’s The Boss Baby (2010)—instead. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61963-151-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
Still, this young boy’s imagination is a powerful force for helping him deal with life, something that should be true for...
Oliver, of first-day-of-school alligator fame, is back, imagining adventures and still struggling to find balance between introversion and extroversion.
“When Oliver found his egg…” on the playground, mint-green backgrounds signifying Oliver’s flight into fancy slowly grow larger until they take up entire spreads; Oliver’s creature, white and dinosaurlike with orange polka dots, grows larger with them. Their adventures include sharing treats, sailing the seas and going into outer space. A classmate’s yell brings him back to reality, where readers see him sitting on top of a rock. Even considering Schmid’s scribbly style, readers can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he ponders the girl and whether or not to give up his solitary play. “But when Oliver found his rock… // Oliver imagined many adventures // with all his friends!” This last is on a double gatefold that opens to show the children enjoying the creature’s slippery curves. A final wordless spread depicts all the children sitting on rocks, expressions gleeful, wondering, waiting, hopeful. The illustrations, done in pastel pencil and digital color, again make masterful use of white space and page turns, although this tale is not nearly as funny or tongue-in-cheek as Oliver and His Alligator (2013), nor is its message as clear and immediately accessible to children.
Still, this young boy’s imagination is a powerful force for helping him deal with life, something that should be true for all children but sadly isn’t. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: July 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-7573-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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