From the Caldecott Honor–winning team of Hush! A Thai Lullaby (1996), an engaging, repetitive rhyme in which a father asks, “Jut-Ay, want to play?” inviting his young daughter to play peek-a-boo, although she’s already begun the game, donning her umbrella, leading the reader over the window sill, outdoors, and into the story. “Jut-Ay, peek-a-boo, is that you?” the father exclaims to each animal he encounters, all while his daughter hides in the background. Onomatopoetic text conveys animal responses to the father’s query. The story concludes with the little girl gleefully exclaiming, “I found you!” Father and daughter are face to face, he with her umbrella, she with his straw hat, and an encore appearance of the animals he has met. Meade’s watercolor and cut-paper collages are drenched in tropical colors: chartreuse, apricot, bright blue. Curving lines, intersecting planes comprised of juxtaposed textures—a sheer fluttering curtain, wood-slatted blinds, and a woven rattan basket echo the game’s energy. Young readers will delight in finding the little girl and her umbrella hiding in each luscious, sun-drenched scene. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7636-2041-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Stick to separate books about parental love and prayer instead.
This Is Us actor Metz and her partner, songwriter Collins, present a rhyming children’s book about prayer and parental love.
“When I talk to God, guess what I do? / It’s really quite simple: I talk about you.” Fields’ pencil and digital illustrations show different parent-child animal pairs throughout, from bears to otters to skunks, ducks, deer, and more. But from this auspicious beginning, the authors’ point of view and direct address to “you,” the child, makes the majority of the pages seem like affirmations of what they love about their child and not what the parent actually prays for. Adults reading this aloud may see this as a prayer of thanksgiving for their child’s gifts and qualities, but little listeners will not make that connection. In the final pages, the parent tells the child that they can talk to God, too, and that God is always by their side. The last spread states, “You’re my sweetest prayer.” While the individual parts are sweet and affirming of a parent’s love and pride in their child, the sum of those parts isn’t what’s advertised in the title and repetitive refrain “When I talk to God, / I talk about you.” The gentle artwork in soft colors anthropomorphizes the animals’ facial expressions to make their loving relationships clear. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Stick to separate books about parental love and prayer instead. (Religious picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-52524-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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