Crews connects 41 nursery rhymes to full-spread, skillfully manipulated photo-collages depicting a multi-age cast of marvelously expressive children at play in various sunny, well-kept Brooklyn locales. Her visualizations are, by and large, literal: an outsized dish and spoon peer over a tall fence between brownstones, ignoring the airborne cow in the background; an itsy bitsy spider does double duty, climbing up a drain spout and frightening a brown-skinned Miss Muffet; a thumb-sized little old lady laughingly scolds 15 even tinier children as they clamber over a pair of shoes left on a carpeted stairway. Opening and closing with rooftop views of Brooklyn (look for the goose), this gathering of common and not-so-common rhymes will be a hit with young readers and pre-readers in any setting, urban or otherwise. (source note) (Nursery rhymes. 3-7)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-051573-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2003
A testament to the universality of love.
An expanded explanation of love in both English and Spanish.
Several animal personalities pose the question, “What is love?” and in a series of lift-the-flap responses present various emotional scenarios. Little Elephant asks Spider, “Is it the joy of having you around?” Spider asks, “Is it the way you lift me when I’m down?” Each page corresponds to a flap that reveals one of a multitude of feelings love can evoke in either an English or Spanish rhyme, which are not direct translations of each other. An interspersed refrain notes, “Amor for the Spanish, / and love en inglés. / Love in any language / always means the same.” A palette of pastels and purple and pink hues dominate as hearts abound on each page, surrounding the characters, who are adorable though on the overly sweet side. The characters are from the bilingual preschool series Canticos, though it will work even among those without knowledge of the show. Children more fluent in Spanish will be better able to appreciate this, and those familiar with the show will recognize the signature characters, including “Los Pollitos” (Little Chickies). (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A testament to the universality of love. (Board book. 3-6)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-945635-72-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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