A well-meaning miss.
A little over a decade after Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (2005) failed to scare even Sam, “the most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world,” both monster and little white boy, now friends, are back.
Sam, readers learn, is still scared of everything except Leonardo, so they will not be surprised at his abject terror at the sight of monster Frankenthaler and her friend Kerry, a little black girl. Being “the second-most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world,” Kerry is equally terrified. Sam’s “AAAAAAAAH”s and Kerry’s “EEEEEEEEEK”s comically dominate the top halves of their respective sides of this double-page spread. Leonardo and Frankenthaler jump to the same, wrong conclusion: that each child is afraid of the unfamiliar monster. Apparently, however, it’s the unfamiliar human that provokes such fright, though the book leaves it up to readers to decide what’s so scary about each completely un–scary-looking child. A skilled, confident adult could use this moment to tease out a rich discussion. For their parts, Leonardo and Frankenthaler just leave it up to Sam and Kerry to “figure it out,” leading to a rushed, superficial exploration of commonalities and differences. As a companion to Leonardo, this shares its predecessor’s look and expectation-toppling gag, but it does not have the first book’s effervescence nor its perfect pacing—and, crucially, it doesn’t get at the heart of what it seems to want readers to understand.
A well-meaning miss. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-368-00214-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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