A simple story about planet-crossed friendship but one in which the eye-catching artwork both accounts for and counteracts...
Two little girls from planets which are different in only one big way become friends in this visually striking app.
Green Zoe is the middle child in a green family that lives on a green planet. Their green lives are shaken up when a big, red spaceship lands, depositing a red family from a red planet. The visitors send their daughter, Maho, to school with Zoe, and the two become friends, despite some color-coded bullying from another student. The friendship lasts, but Maho’s parents become homesick and decide to go back home. It’s a sad goodbye, but maybe Zoe can visit the red planet someday. The lesson of tolerance in the app is simple. The visuals are lovely, with green-hued cars, pets and people made of what appears to be carefully crafted papier-mâché. The spots of red, like Maho and her spaceship, pop amid all the green. Unfortunately, the red Takino family’s outsider status is emphasized by Asian stereotyping, including slanted lines for eyes and World War II propaganda–worthy buckteeth on the father. The text is unremarkable, simply moving the story along and prompting readers to perform simple on-screen actions. Five games from the story are available to play on their own from the app’s main menu.
A simple story about planet-crossed friendship but one in which the eye-catching artwork both accounts for and counteracts much of the colorful charm. (iPad storybook app. 3-8)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Square Igloo
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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
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