A beautifully illustrated ode for preschoolers.
This illustrated children’s board book celebrates everything wonderful about loblolly pine trees.
In a serene, outdoor setting, where fairies fly and small animals live, there’s a children’s playhouse and tall, loblolly pines. The latter “sway in the breeze,” individually and together, and the text compares their distinct appearance—tall, vertical trunks with branches and needles clustered at the top—to birthday candles, cotton candy, and bottle brushes. They stand together in neighborly groups (“The more the merrier”); their green needles turn brown after they fall off; and they provide shelter and support to birds, holly bushes, and small animals. Their pine cones also resemble pineapples, which the narrator calls “a sign of welcome.” Mommy Moo Moo (Vegetable Chatter, 2016) nicely conveys her appreciation for loblollies and their role in the natural world in understandable but not dumbed-down language; some words (“flexible,” “unison”) may need explanation. The gentle, simple prose in sentences such as “Are you trying to touch the clouds as they go by?” helps create a dreamy sense of wonder. The book has good read-aloud potential, with opportunities, for example, to mimic the trees’ rocking in the whooshing wind. Hill’s lovely, full-page illustrations are greatly appealing—realistic and three-dimensional rather than flat and cartoonlike. His soft colors, well-observed details, and varied perspectives are a real delight.
A beautifully illustrated ode for preschoolers.Pub Date: Dec. 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9831584-0-0
Page Count: 19
Publisher: Damara Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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