Move this picture book onto the shelf.
Mia makes a move when sharing space overwhelms her.
The opening text indicates that Mia is an adoptee: “When Mia moved in, Mom and Dad had a room ready for her.” She makes the room her own, but then she must adjust to sharing it when a baby comes home. While Mom shares redheaded, pale-skinned Mia’s coloring, baby Brandon looks more like Dad, with olive skin and black, straight hair. The text merely says he “arrived,” which leaves open the possibility that he was adopted, too. At first, room-sharing is fun, but their room becomes increasingly messy. A climactic illustration depicts clutter and chaos overtaking a central spread, and Mia’s frustrated declaration “I’m moving out!” appears in oversized, red type. Mia’s move occurs within the house—first to the bathroom, then the basement, then the pantry, and so on. Each new space is unsuitable for some humorous reason. A nook fashioned of a blanket overhanging a bookcase seems ideal until Mia decides “it needed something.” Brandon is that something, and together they create a big, open play-space outside. Never do they solve the indoor clutter problem, to which they’ll presumably return, but this narrative gap recedes behind the pleasure of seeing adoptee characters confidently negotiating a sense of home and belonging.
Move this picture book onto the shelf. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-55332-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A delightfully silly celebration of familial love.
A child in search of the best hugger takes a bedtime tour of the world’s most unusual embraces.
In the opening pages of this rhyming picture book, an unnamed narrator asks a curly-haired, tan-skinned child who they think gives the best hugs. At the narrator’s behest, the protagonist spends their bedtime routine receiving affection from a wacky cast of creatures, ranging from meerkats to porcupines to narwhals. These animals have a variety of body types, but even those with a lack of limbs still express their love; the seahorse, for example, gives the child a “smooch” right before bathtime, and a grinning cobra offers the child a “clinch,” wrapping itself around their leg. Although many of the animals prove to be more prickly than cozy—the narrator points out, for example, the sharpness of bird beaks and porcupine quills—even the snuggliest koalas and bears cannot compare to the best hug of all: a parent’s embrace right before bedtime. The use of second-person address combined with the protagonist’s beautifully illustrated facial expressions and the buoyant, clever lines of verse render this book a hilarious and whimsical ride sure to delight both children and the adults who read to them. The pictures and text work together to create a clear narrative arc for the protagonist, and though the ending is a bit predictable, it’s nevertheless a wonderful payoff. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A delightfully silly celebration of familial love. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5476-1236-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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