Van Laan is known and respected for her abilities with story rhymes. In Scrubba Dub’s pre-cursor, Tickle Tum (2001), also illustrated by Pons, the verse moves the story forward and delivers fresh ideas to make supper time more palatable. This bath-time account, however, is rather soggy. The text stumbles from rhymes into halting, herky-jerky tongue stoppers. It begins well enough as a toddler bunny is undressed and prepared for cleansing, “Ewww yuck / sticka stuck! Off goes romper suit / tug tug pull. / Off go sneaker sneaks / tubba tub’s full.” But the reader is soon fumbling for verbal equilibrium and struggling with quasi-words as in “Tippitta dippitta tugboat toots.” The illustrations, in powdery purples and blues, depict tub scenes familiar (and ordinary) to youngsters, e.g. toys, bubbles, soap, water. Clearly happy and harmonious, mommy and babies faces are beaming with love. Pons’s softly lit paintings use watercolors and chalk to appealing effect and her artwork saves this story, but Scrubba Dub as a whole doesn’t offer up anything new or interesting to the saturated bath theme market. (Picture book. 2-4)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-84459-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
Fun format; bland text.
A hefty board book filled with ruminations on the nature of love.
While love is the topic of this board book, it’s the inventive gatefolds and charmingly vintage illustrations that readers will fall for. Brimming with sweeping declarations along the lines of “Love is / strong. // You have my back and I’ll always have yours,” the text sounds like a series of greeting cards strung together. It’s benign enough, but are most toddlers interested in generic proclamations about love? Some statements, like the ones on “unsinkable” hippos or a panda parent holding a cub “steady,” could introduce new vocabulary. At least there’s plenty of winsome critters to fawn over as the surprisingly sturdy flaps tell dramatic little ministories for each cartoon-style animal species. A downcast baby giraffe looks longingly up at a too-high tasty branch; lift a flap to bring an adult giraffe—and the delicacy—down to the baby, or watch an adventurous young fox retreat into a fold-down–flap burrow to learn that “my heart will always be home with you.” At points, the pages are tricky to turn in the correct order, but clever touches, like a series of folds that slow readers down to a sloth’s speed, make up for it. The book concludes with a gatefold revealing a vibrant playground populated with racially and ethnically diverse humans; two are wheelchair users.
Fun format; bland text. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3153-2
Page Count: 84
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
This TV rerun in board-book form has nothing new to offer.
Peppa hopes to join her classmates in a Halloween pumpkin competition in this adaptation of a story from the popular British television program Peppa Pig.
With the help of Granny and Grandpa Pig, Peppa turns her giant pumpkin, which is the size of a compact car, into a jack-o’-lantern. The trio is flummoxed when it comes time to transport the pumpkin to the competition, so they call on Miss Rabbit and her helicopter to airlift the pumpkin to the festivities as Peppa and her grandparents ride inside. Peppa arrives just in time for the contest and wins the prize for best flying pumpkin. The scenes look as if they are pulled directly from the television show, right down to the rectangular framing of some of the scenes. While the story is literally nothing new, the text is serviceable, describing the action in two to three sentences per page. The pumpkin-shaped book and orange foil cover will likely attract youngsters, whether they are Peppa fans or not.
This TV rerun in board-book form has nothing new to offer. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-33922-2
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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