With its rich visuals and workmanlike text, this picture book can be read aloud to children who must adjust to a new home at...
Evie Bear is worried about moving from her city home to the country.
As the young bear, clad in a red-striped dress, and her overalls-wearing dad load up their red truck, she plaintively asks: “Why do we have to move?” and “how will I make new friends?” Her father speaks philosophically about change and then couches his statement in immediately understandable language: “If nothing changed, there would be no more birthday parties.” He advises Evie to “start with a smile” when meeting people. After camping overnight they pull up at their cozy new house with its tiled roof, arched door, and wreath of flowers. As her belongings fit into place, Evie feels at home. Her gentle dad helps her to understand a universal truth: “Home is people who love you. Home is me and you,” but there is a slight visual puzzle. When Dad holds up a photograph of three bears, they both smile faintly, but who is the third bear? Perhaps it is Evie’s other parent, but Dad and Evie are clearly a family of two. Did the other bear die? The mixed-media illustrations include detailed, deeply colored paintings with much to look at in the backgrounds. Dad and Evie’s loving relationship outshines the clichéd textual sentiments.
With its rich visuals and workmanlike text, this picture book can be read aloud to children who must adjust to a new home at an early age. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-947888-14-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flyaway Books
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it.
What happens when a robot washes up alone on an island?
“Everything was just right on the island.” Brown beautifully re-creates the first days of Roz, the protagonist of his Wild Robot novels, as she adapts to living in the natural world. A storm-tossed ship, seen in the opening just before the title page, and a packing crate are the only other human-made objects to appear in this close-up look at the robot and her new home. Roz emerges from the crate, and her first thought as she sets off up a grassy hill—”This must be where I belong”—is sweetly glorious, a note of recognition rather than conquest. Roz learns to move, hide, and communicate like the creatures she meets. When she discovers an orphaned egg—and the gosling Brightbill, who eventually hatches—her decision to be his mother seems a natural extension of her adaptation. Once he flies south for the winter, her quiet wait across seasons for his return is a poignant portrayal of separation and change. Brown’s clean, precise lines and deep, light-filled colors offer a sense of what Roz might be seeing, suggesting a place that is alive yet deeply serene and radiant. Though the book stands alone, it adds an immensely appealing dimension to Roz’s world. Round thumbnails offer charming peeks into the island world, depicting Roz’s animal neighbors and Brightbill’s maturation.
A hymn to the intrinsic loveliness of the wild and the possibility of sharing it. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780316669467
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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