The message appears to be the treats are best when shared, which makes Red Panda’s attempt at entrepreneurship all the odder.
Who can resist candy apples? Not Red Panda.
The animals from Hedgehog’s Magic Tricks (2013) return for a new adventure, this time featuring Red Panda. He’s selling candy apples that he made himself. Rabbit is his first customer, but Red Panda is sad to give the apple to him as he realizes he’d rather eat it himself. Selling candy apples is not as much fun as eating them, it seems. Hedgehog is next, choosing Red Panda’s favorite. Mouse is next. With his coin jar filling up, Red Panda treats himself. “Lick, crackle, crunch.” Now only one candy apple is left for sale, but Duckling and Bushbaby each want one. Luckily, Red Panda has stashed another one for himself, so everybody gets an apple. In a real breach of the author-reader contract, this last apple appears only when Paul needs it. Although red pandas and bushbabies are likely to be new to most North American children, they likely won’t care, as details in the illustrations flavor the story. Reddish crumbs are stuck on whiskers, and animal friends are dressed in clothing, with the white mouse in a pink tutu and Red Panda in red plaid pants. Despite the sweet flair of the pencil-and-digital artwork, though, the story doesn’t have much bite to it.
The message appears to be the treats are best when shared, which makes Red Panda’s attempt at entrepreneurship all the odder. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6758-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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
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SEEN & HEARD
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.
A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.
Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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