Yer pirate-lovin’ tender-aged readers will give Pirate Jack a thumbs-up, but they won’t find many surprises, and disability...
A bold, black-bearded pirate gets dressed for the day, describing each item of his pirate garb by color in rollicking, rhyming text.
Jack the pirate awakens at 6 sharp wearing his gray long johns, which serve as both pajamas and the first layer of his costume. He adds a black eye patch (though he appears to have two intact eyeballs), gold earrings, a silver prosthetic hook on one hand, and clothes of many colors on following pages. His outfit includes a brown boot on one leg and a wooden peg on the other. Pirate Jack, who has golden-tan skin, meets his racially diverse “motley crew,” which includes two women pirates. One of the women has a peg leg and the other has a prosthetic hook. As with most children’s books with a pirate theme, these piratical tropes disregard concerns about disability awareness and sensitivity. The rhyming text is spunky and humorous, filled with familiar pirate lingo such as “matey,” “aye, aye,” and “me” and “ye” for “my” and “you.” Computer-generated illustrations use bright, saturated colors and an oversized landscape format with double-page spreads that provide lots of room for amusing details in Jack’s well-furnished stateroom aboard ship. A tiny mouse character with a teeny-tiny eye patch is hidden somewhere within each spread.
Yer pirate-lovin’ tender-aged readers will give Pirate Jack a thumbs-up, but they won’t find many surprises, and disability advocates will find the same old, same old. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7664-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
A sweet, simple story with a nicely offbeat heroine.
All the animals are welcome to come aboard.
Hedgehog seems very lonely, “curled up in a prickly little ball in a lonely little nook of a lonely little tree.” When she overhears a sympathetic conversation about friendship “out there,” she perks up, picturing a beautiful “Friend Ship.” Hedgehog sets sail with a curious beaver in a small boat to find it. Before long, the duo spots a herd of migrating deer on the shore. Hedgehog asks if they’ve seen the Friend Ship; all reply that they could use a friend and hop aboard. Next, the company spies a rat, who asks to join them. They sail in multiple directions to no avail. Hedgehog begins to lose hope, but her companions convince her to persist. She spots a small island, its only resident an elephant. Hedgehog swims the distance and asks the elephant about the Friend Ship. The elephant points at Hedgehog’s small boat full of animals and asks, “Isn’t that it—right over there?” It’s a lightning-bolt moment. Hedgehog invites the elephant aboard, and they sail west, celebrating all the while…into the sunset together. Yeh makes effective use of dialogue and repetition, investing her characters with personality with just a few lines. Groenink employs sunny, warm hues that increase in saturation as the boat fills and Hedgehog becomes surrounded by friends.
A sweet, simple story with a nicely offbeat heroine. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-0726-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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BOOK REVIEW
A deterministic message detracts from the math.
For 10 flower friends, the grass is always greener…in the sky.
Ten Fantasia-like flowers with adorable faces and leaf arms/hands love being together and basking in the sun, but they also can’t help wanting to break free of their roots and fly when they see the fairies flitting about in the moonlight. One night, “Said the tiny blue one, / ‘Fairy up in the sky, / you see, I’m a flower, / but I want to fly.’ ” While the fairy is puzzled at the flower’s discontent, she grants its wish and transforms it into a butterfly. One by one the others join their mate in the sky as butterflies, each one’s color reflecting its flower origin. At daybreak, though, the new butterflies regret the transformation, and the understanding fairy changes them back again: “But big and tall, / or short and small, / being ourselves / is best of all!” Really? There isn’t even one flower that would really rather fly all the time? Throughout, McKellar emphasizes that there are always 10 in all, though some may be flowers and some butterflies at any given point. The endpapers reinforce ways to make 10 by showing 11 combinations, all in two rows of five, which may confuse children, rather than always keeping butterflies separate from flowers and allowing one row to be longer than the other. The bright colors, butterflies, flowers, and the fairy, who is a dark-skinned pixie with long black hair, seem calibrated to attract girly audiences.
A deterministic message detracts from the math. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-93382-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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