Sweet and playful, with clear examples of how to share love with friends and family
Elliott capitalizes on the success of her beginning-reader series Owl Diaries with a new Eva Wingdale story for the board-book audience.
Describing an abstract concept like love for young toddlers is difficult. Too often the concept is reduced to sugary platitudes. In contrast, Eva Wingdale’s straightforward explanation is sweet but far from saccharine. Brief rhyming text on the left paired with pictures of young owl Eva and her friends on the right make the abstract concrete. “I love lending a helping hand” is illustrated by a picture of Eva holding an umbrella for an owl friend. Sharing treats and “big laughs that reach my toes” are fairly easy to illustrate. “Dressing up in silly clothes” doesn’t seem to have much to do with love but is a convenient rhyme while conveying playful camaraderie. Eva is just as colorful and expressive here as in the beginning readers. Her friends and family are as diverse as one might expect from a collection of cartoon owls with bulging owl eyes, spindly owl legs, and bright, almost garish costumes. It takes some searching to identify Eva on each page. Her pink face, her only consistent characteristic, is sometimes obscured by the costume changes on each page. Still, it’s a positive and affirming message about love.
Sweet and playful, with clear examples of how to share love with friends and family . (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-54910-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more...
Following on the successful Five Little Pumpkins (2003), Yaccarino teams with Rabe for bunnies.
The five pastel bunnies are cute enough, and the rhymes are accurate, if somewhat wordy for toddlers. But without a clear one-to-one relationship between the words and the pictures, it is not always clear which bunny is speaking and what is being counted. The bunnies, identified as first, second, and so on, hop around the pages instead of staying in a consistent order as the rhyme implies. Naming them by color might have been a better choice, but that would mean abandoning the finger-play counting-rhyme formula. The children who show up to hunt the eggs are a multicultural cast of cartoonish figures with those in the background drawn as blue and green silhouettes. Though the text on the back cover invites children to count the eggs, there is no hint as to how many eggs they should find. Neither the verse nor the pictures provide counting assistance. The youngest children will not care about any of this; they will be content to point out the different colors of the bunnies and the patterns on the eggs.
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more satisfying but fragile classic, Pat the Bunny. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-225339-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HarperFestival
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Calm and bright.
A reindeer introduces its calf to the meaning of Christmas.
The reindeer and calf depicted on the book’s cover move through a winter wonderland of snowy mountains and forests. Certain elements of the illustrations (the reindeers’ hides, snowy ground, and fir-tree branches and bark) have a soft visual texture while others (the distant mountains, the changing sky, the sun and stars) have a flat smoothness to them. These contrasting visual effects combine to create a sense of peaceful balance and perspective in the scenes. The accompanying rhyming verse can be read as the voice of the adult reindeer telling its calf about Christmastime, focusing on emotions and atmosphere rather than religious or secular traditions associated with the holiday. For example, there are no references to the Nativity, and Santa never makes an appearance. One verse does mention gift giving—“Christmas is giving / gifts under the tree / and time spent together, / just you and me”—but the illustration that goes along with it doesn’t anthropomorphize the reindeer to show them exchanging presents. Instead, they’re depicted nuzzling noses in a forest of snow-covered fir trees.
Calm and bright. (Picture book. 1-4)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1545-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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