A charmer.
Danitra Brown is back and so is her friend Zuri.
Danitra is as feisty, loyal and adventurous as always. She clowns around and diverts attention when Zuri’s note is about to be made into a class joke. Her lunchbox is always filled with unusual and daring food combinations. When Zuri is terrified of failing math, Danitra is there with help and encouragement. Zuri’s voice is clear and loving as the narrator of the poems. Grimes is a master at selecting just the right word or twist of phrase to evoke the spirit of these two girls, while keeping the language simple and direct. The rhymes are clever and lively and fit just right. The poems flow neatly as they tell the continuing story of Danitra, an “original thinker” and a “matchless friend.” Lewis’s illustrations are spot on, capturing the girls’ idiosyncrasies and bringing them to life.
A charmer. (Picture book/poetry. 8-10)Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-688-17290-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
Where Dave Ross’s and Laura Rader’s A Book of Friends (p. 537) faltered, Kolar’s big, gregarious book succeeds; it’s the ideal size for covering the giant topic of friendship. The pages are rife with drawings, while the text is a collage of tips, captions, and declarations. The spreads show a pageant of the things friends do: bike-riding, dancing, sending messages, and playing musical instruments. The downside of friendship shows up, too, for fights break out and sometimes people just need to be alone. Such general concepts are the playground for Kolar’s parade of silly pictures. “Check me out!” says a checker board, doffing his hat, while on another page a flower explains, “My friends picked me.” The endpapers are alive with stick people, juggling, sweeping, and eating gigantic ice cream cones. A board game breaks up the text by contributing concepts about friendship, e.g., “Stick out your tongue at someone/Lose a turn,” while a separate tale within the pages offers children a mini-storytime. The book is so bright and full of drolleries that children may pore over it for hours, and will return to these pages often. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-45938-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
After Buster Rabbit, Stan Badger, and Sarah Mouse gallop by, Harry Tortoise sets off at his own deliberate pace to find “someone not quick who has time to play with a tortoise.” Sporting an eye-catching red cap, Harry plods through a series of minimally detailed woodland scenes, trailed by a coterie of quizzical beetles, and meets up at last with Sam Snail, a perfect mate for such slo-mo games as “Heads In and Heads Out,” or leisurely conversations about “tree stumps and puddles, and mushrooms and moss.” S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d beyond standard length to mimic Harry’s unhurried progress, this successor to the likes of Arlene Dubanevich’s Pig William (1985) or Eve Merriam’s Unhurry Harry (1978), with its muted colors and smiling, simply drawn figures, is bound to settle and soothe even the most rabbity young listeners. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7636-1802-0
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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