A great cover—a close-up of green-eyed, gray Gorilla’s head with tongue licking her chops—is sure to entice cat lovers...
A young girl named Cecilia describes her affection and relationship with her cat, Gorilla, in short snappy poems.
There are 19 in all, each one titled to set the scene for Gorilla’s many roles: feline nurse, wry boxer, phone-pouncer, paint-tracker, pin-the-tail target, bedmate, soul-food gourmand, tear-licker (when Cecilia’s best friend moves away), fly-chaser, guard cat—and ending with Cecilia proudly announcing, “I’m Gorilla’s human. Don’t ever forget!” Broadly shaped images in Alkyd paints, set against white backgrounds, spill over the pages and rely on their size rather than detailed bodies to define the drama of everyday events. Gorilla is gray and green-eyed, and Cecilia is brown-skinned with dreadlocks. Cat lovers will identify with all the feline traits and tricks, and the cat-girl sentiments are precisely on target.
A great cover—a close-up of green-eyed, gray Gorilla’s head with tongue licking her chops—is sure to entice cat lovers everywhere. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-439-31770-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
There’s always tomorrow.
A lyrical message of perseverance and optimism.
The text uses direct address, which the title- and final-page illustrations suggest comes from an adult voice, to offer inspiration and encouragement. The opening spreads reads, “Tonight as you sleep, a new day stirs. / Each kiss good night is a wish for tomorrow,” as the accompanying art depicts a child with black hair and light skin asleep in a bed that’s fantastically situated in a stylized landscape of buildings, overpasses, and roadways. The effect is dreamlike, in contrast with the next illustration, of a child of color walking through a field and blowing dandelion fluff at sunrise. Until the last spread, each child depicted in a range of settings is solitary. Some visual metaphors falter in terms of credibility, as in the case of a white-appearing child using a wheelchair in an Antarctic ice cave strewn with obstacles, as the text reads “you’ll explore the world, only feeling lost in your imagination.” Others are oblique in attempted connections between text and art. How does a picture of a pale-skinned, black-haired child on a bridge in the rain evoke “first moments that will dance with you”? But the image of a child with pink skin and brown hair scaling a wall as text reads “there will be injustice that will challenge you, and it will surprise you how brave you can be” is clearer.
There’s always tomorrow. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-99437-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
A lyrical coming-of-age story in picture-book form that begs to be shared.
Former Poet Laureate Herrera encourages his young readers to imagine all they might be in his new picture book.
Herrera’s free verse tells his own story, starting as a young boy who loves the plants and animals he finds outdoors in the California fields and is then thrust into the barren, concrete city. In the city he begins to learn to read and write, learning English and discovering a love for words and the way ink flows “like tiny rivers” across the page as he applies pen to paper. Words soon become sentences, poems, lyrics, and a means of escape. This love of the word ultimately leads him to make writing his vocation and to become the first Chicano Poet Laureate of the United States, an honor Herrera received in 2015. Through this story of hardship to success, expressed in a series of conditional statements that all begin “If I,” Herrera implores his readers to “imagine what you could do.” Castillo’s ink and foam monoprint illustrations are a tender accompaniment to Herrera’s verse, the black lines of her illustrations flowing across the page in rhythm with the author’s poetry. Together this makes for a charming read-aloud for groups or a child snuggled in a lap.
A lyrical coming-of-age story in picture-book form that begs to be shared. (Picture book/memoir. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9052-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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