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
A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors.
A confused squirrel overreacts to the falling autumn leaves.
Relaxing on a tree branch, Squirrel admires the red, gold, and orange leaves. Suddenly Squirrel screams, “One of my leaves is…MISSING!” Searching for the leaf, Squirrel tells Bird, “Someone stole my leaf!” Spying Mouse sailing in a leaf boat, Squirrel asks if Mouse stole the leaf. Mouse calmly replies in the negative. Bird reminds Squirrel it’s “perfectly normal to lose a leaf or two at this time of year.” Next morning Squirrel panics again, shrieking, “MORE LEAVES HAVE BEEN STOLEN!” Noticing Woodpecker arranging colorful leaves, Squirrel queries, “Are those my leaves?” Woodpecker tells Squirrel, “No.” Again, Bird assures Squirrel that no one’s taking the leaves and that the same thing happened last year, then encourages Squirrel to relax. Too wired to relax despite some yoga and a bath, the next day Squirrel cries “DISASTER” at the sight of bare branches. Frantic now, Squirrel becomes suspicious upon discovering Bird decorating with multicolored leaves. Is Bird the culprit? In response, Bird shows Squirrel the real Leaf Thief: the wind. Squirrel’s wildly dramatic, misguided, and hyperpossessive reaction to a routine seasonal event becomes a rib-tickling farce through clever use of varying type sizes and weights emphasizing his absurd verbal pronouncements as well as exaggerated, comic facial expressions and body language. Bold colors, arresting perspectives, and intense close-ups enhance Squirrel’s histrionics. Endnotes explain the science behind the phenomenon.
A hilarious autumnal comedy of errors. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-3520-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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