Refreshing.
A popular Christmas song is paired with painted illustrations of the Nativity.
Brooks’ “O Little Town of Bethlehem” lyrics are printed in couplets on tan-colored pages with spot art featuring human and angelic characters. Facing each page of text is a scene in the desert, beginning with a pregnant Mary riding a donkey alongside Joseph walking with his staff along a road. They enter a town at night and disembark in a barnyard, where angels gather above and then people come bearing gifts. The final spread shows Mary caring for tiny baby Jesus, both of them glowing; the facing text quotes Luke 2:14: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men.” Endmatter offers the music, additional verses, and a note about the text. Moses’ naïve art combines strokes of muted colors with the deep blue of a night sky and bright white and golden spots of robes and horns, moon, and stars. The scenes hum with the significance of the night represented. While the angels and the crowd are depicted in hues ranging from dark brown to pale, the three main figures are decidedly pink, and the baby’s hair appears golden. Some Christian families seeking to share the tale of Christ’s birth with their young ones will find this a fitting tribute. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Refreshing. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7878-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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