A valuable message about isolation and community, delightfully delivered.
The world’s smallest king is obsessed with his short…comings.
King Cedric, “ME the First,” doesn’t like being small. “At all.” He needs a ladder to climb up to his loveseat, in which he looks ludicrously diminutive. He loves to sail aloft in his hot air balloon because everyone below him looks so teeny. Special mirrors in the palace make him appear quite tall. Cedric issues a proclamation that no one in the kingdom can be taller than he is. This leads to a mass exodus; Cedric wakes up one morning to find his castle filled with the only people smaller than him…babies! They can’t perform any of the Royal Duties; they cry for milk and cookies; and they climb onto everything. Without really noticing it, Cedric does his best to take care of them, exhausting himself in the process. Another proclamation brings all the parents back. As the babies (depicted as racially diverse) grow up, Cedric doesn’t notice that they are getting taller than him; he’s having too much fun. Lloyd-Jones’ understated drollery works hand in hand with Watkins’ abundant mischief. Cedric presents White; he has the build of a small brick, and his hair consists of two orange wings, like Larry from the Three Stooges. The castle looks something like an upside-down wedding cake, with several turrets shooting skyward from the top, lopsided layer. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A valuable message about isolation and community, delightfully delivered. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7072-3
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Random
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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