by Phyllis Rose de Brunhoff & illustrated by Laurent de Brunhoff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2011
Modernized only minimally (texting!), the book’s appeal lies in these calmingly recognizable characters participating in...
From a franchise as sturdy as an elephant’s memory comes explicit international goodwill.
Celesteville is hosting the Worldwide Games, and animals arrive “from all over” to compete. Babar’s children, “now grown up,” watch the athletes in warm-ups, practices and matches. Pom and Isabelle enjoy the swimming and diving: Elephants, hippos and a big cat (lioness perhaps?) power gracefully though a pool in neat lanes; next, an elephant dives off a springboard, the illustration showing five sequential positions in the somersault. Flora and Alexander prefer track and field and gymnastics (“Who would have thought that hippos were almost as good at the high bar as elephants?”). Watching, Flora falls in love with pole-vaulter Coriander, an athlete from a foreign land. Here the story segues into a gentle cultural acceptance lesson: Flora’s mother Celeste must adjust to Cory’s “small ears,” a trait of his Mirzi nationality, and Cory’s parents must accept that he didn’t choose “a girl from Mirza.” Flora roots for Mirza in the sporting events, which concerns Celeste until Babar reassures her, “I think it is love. And I think it will be good for all of us.” The wedding takes places in Celesteville but with Mirzi clothing and customs, an agreement that pleases everyone.
Modernized only minimally (texting!), the book’s appeal lies in these calmingly recognizable characters participating in Olympic sports and a mixed marriage. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0006-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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by Karen Jameson ; illustrated by Marc Boutavant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2020
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history.
A sonorous, soporific invitation to join woodland creatures in bedding down for the night.
As in her Moon Babies, illustrated by Amy Hevron (2019), Jameson displays a rare gift for harmonious language and rhyme. She leads off with a bear: “Come home, Big Paws. / Berry picker / Honey trickster / Shadows deepen in the glen. / Lumber back inside your den.” Continuing in the same pattern, she urges a moose (“Velvet Nose”), a deer (“Tiny Hooves”), and a succession of ever smaller creatures to find their nooks and nests as twilight deepens in Boutavant’s woodsy, autumnal scenes and snow begins to drift down. Through each of those scenes quietly walks an alert White child (accompanied by an unusually self-controlled pooch), peering through branches or over rocks at the animals in the foregrounds and sketching them in a notebook. The observer’s turn comes round at last, as a bearded parent beckons: “This way, Small Boots. / Brave trailblazer / Bright stargazer / Cabin’s toasty. Blanket’s soft. / Snuggle deep in sleeping loft.” The animals go unnamed, leaving it to younger listeners to identify each one from the pictures…if they can do so before the verses’ murmurous tempo closes their eyes.
Sweet fare for bed- or naptimes, with a light frosting of natural history. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7063-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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by Kim T. Griswell ; illustrated by Valeri Gorbachev ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 6, 2013
But it is the parting sentence that will hit home with everyone: “But Rufus loved storytime most of all… / …because it gave...
Rufus Leroy Williams III is determined to learn how to read, but can he convince Principal Lipid to allow a pig in school?
Rufus makes the best of his illiteracy by imagining his own stories to go with the pictures in his favorite book, but still he longs to read. The tiny pig knows just how to solve his problem, though: With a backpack, he can go to school. But Principal Lipid seems to think it takes more than a backpack to attend school—if you are a pig, that is, since pigs are sure to wreak all sorts of havoc in school: track mud, start food fights, etc. Rufus decides a lunchbox is just the ticket, but the principal feels differently. Maybe a blanket for naptime? Or promises not to engage in specific behaviors? Nope. But the real necessary items were with Rufus all along—a book and the desire to learn to read it. Gorbachev’s ink-and-watercolor illustrations emphasize Rufus’ small size, making both his desire and the principal’s rejection seem that much larger. Parents and teachers beware: The humorous pages of imagined, naughty behavior may be more likely to catch children’ eyes than Rufus’ earnestly good behavior.
But it is the parting sentence that will hit home with everyone: “But Rufus loved storytime most of all… / …because it gave him room to dream.” (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4549-0416-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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by Kim T. Griswell ; illustrated by Valeri Gorbachev
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