A crucial message awkwardly executed.
Animals learn about true fairness.
A tree sports bountiful pears, and Hare wants to partake. Surely Hare can jump high enough to reach them? Alas, no—Hare leaps but comes down with nothing to show for it. Along comes Bear, but she can’t reach them either. Chairs are proposed, opening up the key philosophical question: Bear says it’s unfair if she herself gets only one chair while Hare gets two, but Bear only needs one chair to reach the fruit while Hare really does need two. Giving each animal one chair while leaving one spare (unused) is mathematically equal—thus satisfying Bear—but Hare, alone in not being able to reach pears, objects: “This doesn’t FEEL fair.” Goodhart’s distinction between equality and equity is politically essential in myriad areas of life: “Giving everybody the same thing isn’t always fair” (spoken by a beetle). The repetition of a small set of rhymes—“bear,” “hare,” “pear,” “chair,” “fair,” “spare,” “share”—begs for textual rhythm, which is largely missing. The text sometimes has a forced quality (“I see lots of pears for me”) or an off-kilter casualness (“PICK went Bear”). The art highlights red, dark yellow, and olive green, making the setting autumnal. Bear’s and Hare’s bodies are filled in with nonspecific lines and shadings that are too vertical and horizontal to read as organic fur.
A crucial message awkwardly executed. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-048-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories.
Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.
Serve this superbly designed title to all who relish slightly scary stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0297-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers.
Echoing the meter of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Ward uses catchy original rhymes to describe the variety of nests birds create.
Each sweet stanza is complemented by a factual, engaging description of the nesting habits of each bird. Some of the notes are intriguing, such as the fact that the hummingbird uses flexible spider web to construct its cup-shaped nest so the nest will stretch as the chicks grow. An especially endearing nesting behavior is that of the emperor penguin, who, with unbelievable patience, incubates the egg between his tummy and his feet for up to 60 days. The author clearly feels a mission to impart her extensive knowledge of birds and bird behavior to the very young, and she’s found an appealing and attractive way to accomplish this. The simple rhymes on the left page of each spread, written from the young bird’s perspective, will appeal to younger children, and the notes on the right-hand page of each spread provide more complex factual information that will help parents answer further questions and satisfy the curiosity of older children. Jenkins’ accomplished collage illustrations of common bird species—woodpecker, hummingbird, cowbird, emperor penguin, eagle, owl, wren—as well as exotics, such as flamingoes and hornbills, are characteristically naturalistic and accurate in detail.
A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers. (author’s note, further resources) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2116-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
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