Unsatisfying.
He’s got the music in him, and he can’t stop dancing.
While the big diggers move the earth and fill up the trucks at the side of the highway, a hard rain falls. The Roadman has a bit of trouble holding up his big stop sign. He’s chilly, bored, soggy, and fighting a cold. When a car pulls up, blaring out a rockabilly tune, Roadman’s toes begin to twitch, and he can’t help but dance along with the music. The same thing happens when a decorated station wagon drives by with a doo-wop song emanating from it. A truck blaring a country-music ballad gets his knees rocking back and forth. He also moves to a boogie-woogie beat, a rhumba, a saucy salsa, a bit of jazz, a brassy bugle band, and a dazzling disco track. He’s so busy dancing he doesn’t notice the rising water. “The river’s overflowed!” Quickly, he puts out his cones and closes the road. Traffic is likely to be stalled for hours. There’s only one sensible thing to do: invite everyone to “my Roadman’s Boogie Ball!” Robinson’s rhyming text gives the story a bit of a lift, but her illustrations don’t fulfill the promise of so many different styles of dance, and the idea of matching the music to the vehicles is only half realized, so spread after spread features nothing but the pale-skinned Roadman dancing against a gray, textured backdrop meant to evoke rain.
Unsatisfying. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-76036-012-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Starfish Bay
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A family book to learn with and share for those inclined to this religious lifestyle.
“Hakaras Hatov,” the Jewish daily ritual of thanking God for everyday life, is explicated in simplistic verse in this personalized drawing workbook.
Beginning with the Modeh Ani, or morning prayer, a little girl, upon awakening in her bed, thanks Hashem (God) for ”making me, me!” As her day continues, she is grateful for her family, the mitzvos (good deeds) she is able to do, food she eats, her home and possessions, the natural world surrounding her, her health and, at night, once again for her warm bed. Each thank you is accompanied by a brightly hued watercolor illustration on the left side featuring an observant Jewish family in proper attire, complete with long skirts for girls and yarmulkes for boys. The right side provides a bordered blank page for children to draw their own corresponding thank-you picture as suggested—“Where do you live? Draw a picture of your house on this page.” Created for an Orthodox audience, this preschool-oriented introduction to daily prayer and gratitude is carefully designed and stands out by presenting a girl for its protagonist. Yet it pales compared to the award-winning, artfully rendered duo by Sarah Gershman, The Bedtime Sh’ma (2007) and Modeh Ani (2010).
A family book to learn with and share for those inclined to this religious lifestyle. (Picture books/religion. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-929628-63-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hachai
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2012
Very young children deserve a better reason to get excited about our world than this bit of promotional fluff.
Lily, a cute freckled redhead with enormous eyes, flits through a number of unnamed countries with her stuffed zebra, Zeborah.
Ostensibly created to inculcate wanderlust in very young children, this character seems to be little more than an advertisement for the author/artist’s clothing company for little girls, called Lately Lily. Talk about cross-platform! Lily’s parents travel a lot for their jobs, and the lucky young lady gets to accompany them. Although the usual images (the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, a red London double-decker bus) show up in the retro illustrations, there is very little text that provides any information—or storytelling, for that matter. In her favor, Lily is seen writing in her journal and sending letters to the friends that she meets along the way. Knowledgeable parents or other adults could use the pictures as a jumping-off point, but why bother introducing young readers to pictures of stereotypically dressed children and familiar monuments when there is no real content? Yes, it’s fun to visit other countries but not in the vacuous manner of Lily’s visits.
Very young children deserve a better reason to get excited about our world than this bit of promotional fluff. (Picture book. 4-5)Pub Date: May 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1525-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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