Little listeners will be hoping their hands will take flight on their next road trips.
Just how high can a wayward hand fly?
Marco B. and his family are on a road trip. With his window rolled down, he sticks his hand out and lets it glide and soar on the breezes. “My fingers float without a care / But as I’m swooping through the air / My mommy’s voice yells from afar, / ‘Please get your hand back in the car!’ ” But his parents just don’t understand that his hand just has to fly. The last time it sneaks out, Marco’s sucked out too. He soars above the car, then above the town, then he’s above the Earth with the astronauts and ETs, and he’s scared. “If only I could make this end / I’d NEVER fly the hand again. / I curl into a little ball / And just like that… / …I start to fall.” He zooms back to the car and promises himself he won’t fly his hand again…but that may not be a promise he can keep. Musician and adman Leiter’s debut’s a rhyming romp of creative play, and Marco’s quick trip into the sky will be familiar to imaginative tots. Israeli illustrator Kober’s soaring, colorful illustrations are an ideal match. He renders Marco with light-brown skin and short, straight black hair that almost comes to a kewpie curl in front.
Little listeners will be hoping their hands will take flight on their next road trips. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-58536-888-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
A nice but not requisite purchase.
A retelling of the classic fairy tale in board-book format and with a Mexican setting.
Though simplified for a younger audience, the text still relates the well-known tale: mean-spirited stepmother, spoiled stepsisters, overworked Cinderella, fairy godmother, glass slipper, charming prince, and, of course, happily-ever-after. What gives this book its flavor is the artwork. Within its Mexican setting, the characters are olive-skinned and dark-haired. Cultural references abound, as when a messenger comes carrying a banner announcing a “FIESTA” in beautiful papel picado. Cinderella is the picture of beauty, with her hair up in ribbons and flowers and her typically Mexican many-layered white dress. The companion volume, Snow White, set in Japan and illustrated by Misa Saburi, follows the same format. The simplified text tells the story of the beautiful princess sent to the forest by her wicked stepmother to be “done away with,” the dwarves that take her in, and, eventually, the happily-ever-after ending. Here too, what gives the book its flavor is the artwork. The characters wear traditional clothing, and the dwarves’ house has the requisite shoji screens, tatami mats and cherry blossoms in the garden. The puzzling question is, why the board-book presentation? Though the text is simplified, it’s still beyond the board-book audience, and the illustrations deserve full-size books.
A nice but not requisite purchase. (Board book/fairy tale. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7915-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The action of this rhymed and humorous tale centers upon a mouse who "took a stroll/through the deep dark wood./A fox saw the mouse/and the mouse looked good." The mouse escapes being eaten by telling the fox that he is on his way to meet his friend the gruffalo (a monster of his imagination), whose favorite food is roasted fox. The fox beats a hasty retreat. Similar escapes are in store for an owl and a snake; both hightail it when they learn the particulars: tusks, claws, terrible jaws, eyes orange, tongue black, purple prickles on its back. When the gruffalo suddenly materializes out of the mouse's head and into the forest, the mouse has to think quick, declaring himself inedible as the "scariest creature in the deep dark wood," and inviting the gruffalo to follow him to witness the effect he has on the other creatures. When the gruffalo hears that the mouse's favorite food is gruffalo crumble, he runs away. It's a fairly innocuous tale, with twists that aren't sharp enough and treachery that has no punch. Scheffler's funny scenes prevent the suspense from culminating; all his creatures, predator and prey, are downright lovable. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-2386-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1999
SEEN & HEARD
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