A sweet story celebrating the magic of seasonal holidays.
In Bryant’s picture book, when Santa mixes up his dates and arrives in Holidayville too early for Christmas, he is invited to join in a Fall Festival.
“Once upon a time, in the enchanting town of Holidayville, every day felt like a celebration.” So begins this tale of what happens to Father Christmas when an elf makes a mistake with Santa’s calendar and sends him to Holidayville in October. Santa lands his sleigh during the Fall Festival and is about to take off again when best friends Rihanna and Harlem spot him and convince him to stay. (The people of Holidayville all wear costumes for the festival, so Santa won’t stand out.) He joins the girls in all of their festival traditions—painting pumpkins, bobbing for apples, telling spooky stories—and not only does Santa have a great time, Harlem and Rihanna enjoy themselves all the more for sharing. Bryant writes straightforward prose presented in a faux handprinted font that might give pause to younger readers. The premise is wholesome and appealing: Santa, a tireless benefactor of the holiday season, is given his own taste of holiday magic. Figueras brings the tale to life by way of double-page-spread digital illustrations that glisten in autumnal shades. Holidayville is depicted as racially diverse; Harlem and Rihanna, who are Black, embody the delight of children everywhere in rejoicing and making merry. All told, this is a lovely concept well realized.
A sweet story celebrating the magic of seasonal holidays.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781957092928
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Mynd Matters Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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