Wishes come true for a young artisan in this abbreviated teaching tale. Jack builds elaborate sandcastles, only to watch the sea wash them away. At last he angrily wishes on an unusual shell that his latest creation would grow to full size, with him as its king. That night, both wishes are granted—but even so, rising waves take this castle down too. While the castle’s merry residents turn to merfolk and swim away, Jack makes his third wish, and is wafted safely back to bed. The next morning he has not only accepted that the sea will always prevail, he’s come to realize how much better it is to be a boy building sand castles, than a king. Dramatically angled points of view give Robertson’s (The Egg, 2000) formal, carefully detailed paintings a measure of vitality, and Jack’s castles, whether sand or stone, are showstoppers; still, Jack’s change of heart comes without transition, and the lessons loom larger than the story’s events. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-87358-782-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Rising Moon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Miranda’s book counts the monsters gathering at a birthday party, while a simple rhyming text keeps the tally and surveys the action: “Seven starved monsters are licking the dishes./Eight blow out candles and make birthday wishes.” The counting proceeds to ten, then by tens to fifty, then gradually returns to one, which makes the monster’s mother, a purple pin-headed octopus, very happy. The book is surprisingly effective due to Powell’s artwork; the color has texture and density, as if it were poured onto the page, but the real attention-getter is the singularity of every monster attendee. They are highly individual and, therefore, eminently countable. As the numbers start crawling upward, it is both fun and a challenge to try to recognize monsters who have appeared in previous pages, or to attempt to stay focused when counting the swirling or bunched creatures. The story has glints of humor, and in combination with the illustrations is a grand addition to the counting shelf. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201835-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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