The endlessly inventive Japanese illustrator amazes us yet again with his creative imagination. Here is a book within a book, its 7" x 8" cover displayed on the larger book's title page: it is a conventional Aesop with succinct texts, pithy morals, and lively illustrations. The pages of this "book" appear at the top of each double spread in the larger (8.5" x 10.5") book, framed in quiet buff with an alternate text appearing at the bottom. The second text is narrated to his son by Mr. Fox, who for some reason—perhaps, Anno hints, he speaks another language—doesn't read the "real" text but invents his own. The first (of 41) cleverly arrives at Aesop's moral by a different route, but that's only one of Anno's remarkable variations. He plays with numbers, logic, common sense, reflections, and familiar images (like Van Gogh's bridge); interprets from a fox's point of view; imagines concealed auxiliary characters; combines illustrations to make single new stories; and more, including reading "The North Wind and the Sun" as an ad for insurance. His illustrations are witty, economical, full of entrancing detail, and perfectly suited to the multiple interpretations. What a swell way to encourage imagination, verbal ability, and receptivity to new ideas!
Pub Date: April 1, 1989
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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