Frasier’s (Miss Alaineus, 2000, etc.) bright yellow, orange, red, green, and blue collages of cut paper set in quilt-like designs are dazzling. Birds, flowers, leaves, a snail, the sun, the moon, and stars are all arranged in swirls of color, bound together with paper stitches that add to the color and sense of movement. Undeniably beautiful, they overwhelm the spare, contemplative poem that they accompany. “There–in the space of the sky is a field for the sun, / a sea for the moon, / clouds where storms can hide, / stars where silence sings.” The words are lovely to read aloud. In the end a child goes “into my house . . . And here–in the space of my dream, / I see all of the earth and all of the sky.” The illustrations do not express the distance that these words imply. The poem and the illustrations are each lovely on their own. Together, they result in sensory overload that limits rather than expands the imagination. (Picture book/poetry. 4-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-253150-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002
Sure to “net” young audiences, who will definitely root for the birds.
A peace-waging parable, presented with wry minimalism à la Jon Klassen or Tomi Ungerer.
Carrying nets, three hunters creep up on a sleeping bird in a dark forest, but thanks to their own clumsiness, they repeatedly manage to get in one another’s way as the bird slips off. Meanwhile, despite their frantic shushing, a smaller, fourth figure waves and calls out “hello birdie,” offering bread. Soon, an entire flock has gathered around number four’s feet—a flock that proceeds to turn and chase the hunters away. The text runs to just a few words per page, but it neatly serves to crank up the suspense: “ready one / ready two / ready three… // GO!” Haughton (Oh No, George!, 2012) uses a palette of deep blues and purples for his simple forest scenes; this causes the hunters’ googly eyes to stand out comically and also makes the fuchsia, red and orange birds easy to spot and follow. Last seen creeping up on a squirrel, the hunters have plainly learned nothing from their experience…but young readers might.
Sure to “net” young audiences, who will definitely root for the birds. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7293-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
Gorgeous cut-paper collage illustrations cannot outweigh the absence of a story.
First in the Math in Nature series, this prompts readers to imagine animals and plants using numbers to count and arrange themselves.
“Would pronghorns pair up, / line up in a parade, / and prance across the prairie? // With toes like those, / do you suppose / raccoons can count on trouble?” The text attempts some rhythm and rhyme, but it is inconsistent and awkwardly forces the story to conform to the words. Each verse is followed by a separate text box that allows readers to practice a mathematical concept: Counting, ordinal numbers, groups of 10, skip counting, counting down from 10, and halves are among those addressed. Backmatter includes a brief paragraph of information about the featured flora and fauna, but it lacks an answer key. Barron’s artwork is lovely, each spread filled with natural colors, textures and 3-D scenery, but not all are particularly fall-ish. It can also be difficult to distinguish the items to be counted from the backgrounds and to put them into the correct groupings (don’t count across the gutter on the bat page, even though there’s no break in the line of bats!). Finally, Flatt’s conclusion—that nature does not "know" numbers—is just not scientifically accurate. Animals and plants may not count and arrange themselves by number, but that does not mean there is no math in nature.
Gorgeous cut-paper collage illustrations cannot outweigh the absence of a story. (Math picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-926973-36-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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