A joyful, visually enchanting ride perfect for sparking curiosity in young explorers everywhere.
Lugo’s picture book celebrates adventures of the imagination across land, sea, and sky.
The author takes budding young adventurers on a ride where they soar above mountain peaks, drift past clouds, dive into an underwater castle with friendly sea creatures, and swing through the jungle alongside cheerful orangutans and wise monkeys. Each page offers a new travel adventure and presents the world as an endless playground. This storybook empowers kids to look at their everyday lives for inspiration to make stories of their own, but also reinforces the idea that there will always be obstacles and inconveniences in every journey: but never fear, because these can lead to intellectual and spiritual growth. The ending encourages self-belief and optimism that feels heartfelt and moving, and the illustrations bring vibrancy and warmth to the book as a whole, with sweeping scenes that beckon the audience into each fantasy location. The expressive, colorful environments elevate the book beyond its words, making each page a visual feast. However, since the text is white it’s sometimes difficult to read when superimposed on a lighter background. Perhaps a different color or placement would help to make it easier for children to follow. The use of capitalization in certain spots felt odd as well: It can work well in poetry or to emphasize a point, but mostly tends to be distracting or awkward.
A joyful, visually enchanting ride perfect for sparking curiosity in young explorers everywhere.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9798345757093
Page Count: 24
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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