A charming, metafictive good night.
This book within a book tells the story of a little hedgehog who resists reading a bedtime story about a little bear—or is it also a story about a little bear who reads a book about a little hedgehog?
The front-cover art shows the hedgehog snuggling with her mother while they read a book that looks like the one readers hold in their hands. The back-cover art shows a pair of bears reading the same book. Within the covers, the story opens with the hedgehog child, Sami, resisting a bedtime story about a bear. Mama is patient but prompts her to choose a book to read later. Sami acquiesces and then asks Mama to read the beginning. The accompanying picture’s perspective allows readers to look over her shoulder to read a verse in the book within the book about a little bear getting ready for bed. At first Sami says, “Don’t turn the page,” but her curiosity gets the better of her. Ensuing pages depict continued reading punctuated by Sami’s own preparations for bedtime as she mimics the little bear putting on pajamas, brushing teeth and reading. The final page delivers a conclusion in which the art shows the bears, not within the hedgehog’s book, but living beside the hedgehogs’ home.
A charming, metafictive good night. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-939547-06-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Creston
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Willems’ formula is still a winner.
The pigeon is back, and he is filthy!
Readers haven’t seen the pigeon for a couple of years, not since The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? (2012), and apparently he hasn’t bathed in all that time. Per the usual routine, the bus driver (clad in shower cap and bathrobe) opens the story by asking readers to help convince the pigeon to take a bath. Though he’s covered in grime, the obstreperous bird predictably resists. He glares at readers and suggests that maybe they need baths. With the turn of the page, Willems anticipates readers’ energetic denials: The pigeon demands, “YEAH! When was the last time YOU had a bath?!” Another beat allows children to supply the answer. “Oh.” A trio of flies that find him repulsive (“P.U.!”) convinces him it’s time. One spread with 29 separate panels depicts the pigeon adjusting the bath (“Too wet!…Too cold.…Too reflective”) before the page turn reveals him jumping in with a spread-filling “SPLASH!” Readers accustomed to the pigeon formula will note that here the story breaks from its normal rhythms; instead of throwing a tantrum, the pigeon discovers what readers already know: “This is FUN!” All the elements are in place, including page backgrounds that modulate from dirty browns to fresh, clean colors and endpapers that bookend the story (including a very funny turnabout for the duckling, here a rubber bath toy).
Willems’ formula is still a winner. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9087-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A delightfully silly celebration of familial love.
A child in search of the best hugger takes a bedtime tour of the world’s most unusual embraces.
In the opening pages of this rhyming picture book, an unnamed narrator asks a curly-haired, tan-skinned child who they think gives the best hugs. At the narrator’s behest, the protagonist spends their bedtime routine receiving affection from a wacky cast of creatures, ranging from meerkats to porcupines to narwhals. These animals have a variety of body types, but even those with a lack of limbs still express their love; the seahorse, for example, gives the child a “smooch” right before bathtime, and a grinning cobra offers the child a “clinch,” wrapping itself around their leg. Although many of the animals prove to be more prickly than cozy—the narrator points out, for example, the sharpness of bird beaks and porcupine quills—even the snuggliest koalas and bears cannot compare to the best hug of all: a parent’s embrace right before bedtime. The use of second-person address combined with the protagonist’s beautifully illustrated facial expressions and the buoyant, clever lines of verse render this book a hilarious and whimsical ride sure to delight both children and the adults who read to them. The pictures and text work together to create a clear narrative arc for the protagonist, and though the ending is a bit predictable, it’s nevertheless a wonderful payoff. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A delightfully silly celebration of familial love. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5476-1236-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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