Mexican-American Miguelito loses his tooth and so begins an amusing battle between the Tooth Fairy and El Ratón Pérez. Colato Laínez keeps the storytelling lively with bilingual exclamations seamlessly embedded in the dialogue between the two tooth-seekers. Through a series of entertaining misadventures the tooth seems unattainable until the rivals agree to work together. Lintern infuses the pixie Tooth Fairy with glowing pastel colors while portraying the dashing El Ratón Pérez with contrasting earthy hues. To perhaps signify the characters’ common goal and eventual collaboration, the illustrator uses the same pale pink for the fairy’s wings and the mouse’s ears. After El Ratón Pérez uses el diente to fashion a rocket ship to visit the moon, the Tooth Fairy gets the tooth to help build her sparkling castle. And not only is Miguelito rewarded with two shiny coins under his pillow, but readers are treated to a clever introduction to two charming folk customs. (author’s note, glossary of Spanish terms) (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58246-296-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
The can’t-miss subject of this Step into Reading series entry—a unicorn with a magic horn who also longs for wings—trumps its text, which is dry even by easy-reader standards. A boy unicorn, whose horn has healing powers, reveals his wish to a butterfly in a castle garden, a bluebird in the forest and a snowy white swan in a pond. Falling asleep at the edge of the sea, the unicorn is visited by a winged white mare. He heals her broken wing and she flies away. After sadly invoking his wish once more, he sees his reflection: “He had big white wings!” He flies off after the mare, because he “wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’ ” Perfectly suiting this confection, Silin-Palmer’s pictures teem with the mass market–fueled iconography of what little girls are (ostensibly) made of: rainbows, flowers, twinkly stars and, of course, manes down to there. (Easy reader. 4-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83117-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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