Gentle, atmospheric, and lovely.
This Robert Louis Stevenson poem is brought to life on pages that fold out rather than turn.
On the cover, a White-presenting child with short, light-brown hair sets a toy sailboat adrift on a river. The book’s pages then open up left to right to reveal an expanding scene of the riverbank, with several more of these toy boats sailing down the water. Two to four lines of Stevenson’s verse are shared in white type on each page. As the book unfolds readers see more of the scene, including a frog eyeing its insect dinner flying overhead, a deer gazing at the water, and the silhouettes of a baseball-cap–wearing grown-up fishing with a child who’s admiring the boats. Sheban’s soft, golden-hour–lit art, in what looks to be watercolor and pastel or pencil, matches the mood of the poem perfectly. While the unusual binding is a brilliant idea that allows the structure of the book to emulate a meandering river, it may prove slightly unwieldy for lap reading, as, when extended, it is more than 3 feet long. The scene is completed with a view of another White child, this one with long hair, retrieving one of the toy boats. The content of Stevenson’s poem may float over the heads of the youngest readers, but the language is gorgeously sonorous, and the art and format do a wonderful job of creating an immersive experience.
Gentle, atmospheric, and lovely. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-56846-352-0
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Creative Editions/Creative Company
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
All aboard for a spooktacularly sleepy ride!
The goodnight train is back for a not-so-scary fourth installment.
The nighttime locomotive travels through an autumnal landscape that’s bursting with Halloween tropes. As in the previous stories, bed-shaped cars are hooked up for a train ride; here, three diverse children are dressed in their Halloween finest as a skeleton, a princess, and a bee. Fans of the series will find the usual perks of a solid rhyme scheme, additional words and sounds peppering the illustrations, and pages of yawning creatures signaling that it’s time for bed. Those unfamiliar with the series will also find the book amusing, but readers who really love Halloween—or spooky things like bats, ghosts, and black cats—will enjoy it the most. As with the other installments in this series, educators and librarians will find this useful for seasonal book displays and storytimes but will probably keep it out year-round because it checks many of the boxes that signal a solid addition to any board-book library. Die-cut circles of various sizes are sprinkled across the double-page spreads, giving caregivers a chance to test young readers’ predictive skills while providing small hints at what’s to come. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
All aboard for a spooktacularly sleepy ride! (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-3586-2607-7
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
To quote one particularly joyous double-page spread, “Oh, what a ride!”
A succession of forest creatures—and even the river itself—learn from one another and validate their relationships with both one another and the wider world.
The simplicity of the text and the stylized, comical creatures belie the depth of the message that comes through for even the youngest of readers: We are all in this together, and our differences strengthen our unity. The river “didn’t know it was a river…until” Bear accidentally begins riding down it on a piece of broken tree trunk. Bear in turn doesn’t realize he is on an adventure until Froggy lands on his back; lonely Froggy doesn’t know how many friends she has until the wary Turtles show up on the ever-more-swiftly-moving log; the Turtles learn how to enjoy the ride when Beaver climbs aboard; and so on through several more characters until they are all at the brink of a waterfall. Outstanding art perfectly complements the text, showing the animals’ differing personalities while also using color, space, and patterns to create appealing scenery. There are several hilarious double-page spreads, including one from the animals’ collective perspective, showing solely the various feet on the tree-trunk–cum-raft at the waterfall’s edge, and one requiring a 90-degree turn, showing the plummeting animals as they reach for one another—some looking worried and others, like Duck and Beaver, obviously enjoying the sudden drop.
To quote one particularly joyous double-page spread, “Oh, what a ride!” (author’s note, illustrator’s note) (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-46447-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
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