Skip this, and stick with Karen Beaumont and Jackie Urbanovic’s No Sleep for the Sheep (2005) for a story with a catchy...
Rauss, winner of the 2010 Cheerios® New Author Contest, reveals the travails of poor Aiden McDoodle as he searches for a quiet spot to get some sleep.
He tries upstairs, downstairs, the backyard and even the town park. But each place is too noisy: “In the library the whispers built up to a riot, / until the librarian stepped in and shouted out, ‘QUIET!’ ” When the noises of the baseball game, ice-cream truck, maintenance worker and the band practicing in the gazebo finally become too much, Aiden snaps. His plea for quiet is heard from sea to sea and into space. The world obligingly pauses long enough for him to run home, jump into bed and begin to snore before the noises resume. The lengthy lines of Rauss’ rhyming verse add to its sometimes-stumbling rhythm, and readers never find out just why Aiden is so tired, a fact that detracts from the humor, especially given his seemingly younger sister’s unflagging energy level. Shepperson’s watercolor-and-ink artwork add to this disconnect, as they depict a quite ordinary day—the noise level looks to be nothing extraordinary. But readers will certainly feel for the tired tyke, whose facial expressions say it all as he desperately tries to find some rest amid everyone else’s exuberance.
Skip this, and stick with Karen Beaumont and Jackie Urbanovic’s No Sleep for the Sheep (2005) for a story with a catchy rhythm that will really have listeners chiming in. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-3497-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated.
Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault’s classic alphabet book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989) gets the Halloween treatment.
Chung follows the original formula to the letter. In alphabetical order, each letter climbs to the top of a tree. They are knocked back to the ground in a jumble before climbing up in sequence again. In homage to the spooky holiday theme, they scale a “creaky old tree,” and a ghostly jump scare causes the pileup. The chunky, colorful art is instantly recognizable. The charmingly costumed letters (“H swings a tail. / I wears a patch. J and K don / bows that don’t match”) are set against a dark backdrop, framed by pages with orange or purple borders. The spreads feature spiderwebs and jack-o’-lanterns. The familiar rhyme cadence is marred by the occasional clunky or awkward phrase; in particular, the adapted refrain of “Chicka chicka tricka treat” offers tongue-twisting fun, but it’s repeatedly followed by the disappointing half-rhyme “Everybody sneaka sneak.” Even this odd construction feels shoehorned into place, since “sneaking” makes little sense when every character in the book is climbing together. The final line of the book ends on a more satisfying note, with “Everybody—time to eat!”
A bit predictable but pleasantly illustrated. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781665954785
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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