Proof that being loved is better than being the greatest.
A charming look at the distinction between “perfect” and “perfect for you.”
This clever meditation on the power of friendship is simply told, simply rendered, and amusingly rooted in a subtext about truth in advertising. On the cover, a gold seal proclaims Zip, the world’s greatest robot, the “#1 Best.” Meanwhile, an asterisked disclaimer acknowledges that the claim “World’s Greatest” is “not scientifically proven.” Zip introduces itself as “the world’s GREATEST robot” to a kind-looking kitty in a dress, whose immediate response is, “How can you be sure?” “It says so in my user manual,” Zip replies, producing a copy of the Official Zip Guide. When the dubious kitten points out that the world is, in fact, a very big place, Zip proceeds to show off some admittedly amazing features: retractable arms and legs, a turbo booster, and a drawer of warm cookies. But after Zip claims to be able to read minds, it turns out the new friends are perhaps not on the same wavelength after all…or are they? After the kitten consoles Zip for incorrectly guessing what its new feline friend was thinking, the robot offers exactly what the kitten wanted: more cookies. Plain, sky-blue backgrounds and green grass underfoot keep the focus on the compassionate kitten and the robot, which resembles a grinning Shop-Vac wearing a rabbit-ear antenna.
Proof that being loved is better than being the greatest. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-80036-001-3
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Tiny Seed
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Good, silly fun wrapped in crisp graphics.
Robot extraterrestrials encounter a farm on Earth.
A family of bots, each carrying a handy digital device called a Zot, head away from their mod-looking single-occupant space vehicles to explore the moon. All, that is, except Blip, who spies Earth and heads there instead. Staccato rhyming text covers Blip’s exploration, with his Zot warning him each time he’s about to encounter something new. “ ‘Blip, stop!’ / ‘Zot, wazzzzzdot?’ ” Broad visual cues, which at first only show parts of the whole, let kids in on the fun—they’ll know that muddy pig by its curly pink tail. Blip encounters boxes of fresh, crunchy vegetables, three aggressive chickens, a dairy cow and more. Each new discovery reveals more of what is obviously a farm. After Blip drives a tractor—with predictable results involving a tree stump—the mother bot arrives, looking quite displeased. His Zot summarizes all that Blip has encountered (Slack shows the farm denizens in silhouette above their heads), and the bots happily explore. Mother collects her explorer for departure—but where is Blip? Driving Sunnyland Farm’s veggies to town, of course. Slack’s digital paintings couple stylized, sharp-edged images and a wild color palette of magenta, chartreuse, blue and orange to convey an ET’s-eye view of familiar toddler icons.
Good, silly fun wrapped in crisp graphics. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-8347-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stronger bedtime and alien books abound in the universe of children’s literature.
A melding of fact and fiction strives to present a bedtime lesson on the solar system.
Two earthling children drift off to sleep as the book opens, and successive spreads describe the bedtime routines of sleepy little extraterrestrials on Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Endpapers underscore the title’s reference to a “race” by depicting the planets as first-through-ninth–place medals according to their respective distances from the sun. This seems to refer more to solar years instead of days with regard to the measurement of the time (how long it takes to travel around the sun, versus how long it takes for a day to pass), which muddies the bedtime theme a bit. After all, planetary days are dictated by rotation and vary in length without necessarily corresponding to the annual “race” around the sun. Backmatter entitled “Sleepy Bedtime Planet Factoids” help to ground the text in scientific facts about the planets, but this can’t fully mitigate how stumbling rhymes and twee wordplay grate—“Uranus is a gassy place. / They sleep with masks stuck to each face.” Won’s digital artwork has a retro sensibility. An isolated inclusion of a brown-skinned boy on the second spread smacks of tokenism, since all other representations of human children depict the same Caucasian boys (the children of Neptune display more diversity by comparison).
Stronger bedtime and alien books abound in the universe of children’s literature. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-38647-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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