written and illustrated by Peggy Huth ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A cute collection of surface-level vignettes about a little lost sheep who finds love.
A spirited lost sheep lives with several human families in this painterly debut picture book by author/illustrator Huth.
When a tiny lamb is born but cannot find her mother, she looks for another animal to take care of her. Miss Boots finds the lamb, whom she calls Bummer (the term for a lost lamb), among her goats. Unable to rescue the lamb herself, she enlists her neighbor boy Kinder to take the lamb home. There, Bummer finds a family among the chickens, Kinder and his mother until she grows up and discovers a nearby vineyard. A third family takes on the sheep, and while Bummer has trouble fitting in with the older sheep, she’s ready to befriend all the new arrivals. Proud of her wool, Bummer avoids the shearing station, but eventually, she realizes that she’s better off without her heavy wool in the warm weather. More a series of vignettes than a single story, this picture book meanders through Bummer’s experiences without delving into any of them. Bummer doesn’t develop enough as a character to be considered a hero, and the humans are too tangentially present to play that role. The sheep’s lesson in making friends or in not being afraid to be sheared might resonate with young readers, but with such a brief telling, children might instead focus on the painterly illustrations. The detail in the paintings is uneven; some are more abstract, and some are like sketches. Huth is at her best depicting Bummer among other farm animals, and the chickens are particularly convincing. The only diversity among the human characters is age, which may be because the tale is based on a true story. Lap readers may enjoy this quiet book or invent further adventures for Bummer on their own, creating details where the book leaves them out.
A cute collection of surface-level vignettes about a little lost sheep who finds love.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-916754-35-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Filsinger & Company, Ltd.
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
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by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney
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SEEN & HEARD
by Dan Saks ; illustrated by Brooke Smart ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2020
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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