See the pictures without the treacly text and upload photo contributions to support Operation Smile at SpontaneousSmiley.com...
A photographic collection of found faces smiles up at readers, while overly upbeat rhymes try to instill a positive attitude.
Clever photos of everyday objects that reveal smiley faces hidden all around are the main focus, and they are almost enough to carry the book on their own. Two undone shirt buttons and the gap they leave form one smiley. Another is on the underside of a toy train. There is even a straight-mouthed face formed by the interplay between blue sky and heavy cloud cover. If nothing else, the photos are sure to get kids looking at the world around them in new ways. But this effort goes beyond, adding too much to too little and creating an unsuccessful hodgepodge. Her smileys are presented in color groups, but the pictures are so inherently interesting that their colors become secondary. Too, there is the problem that several of the smileys are difficult to see. However, it is in the rhyming text that the book finally falls flat. "Smile! Be happy! / You get to pick— / When something is icky, / Do you focus on ick? // Look all around / And notice the good! / Focus on that. / We think you should." The message and its delivery are disappointingly out of sync.
See the pictures without the treacly text and upload photo contributions to support Operation Smile at SpontaneousSmiley.com instead. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-375-86983-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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