A pleasant story with pretty illustrations.
A shy snowman and a curious rabbit weather a friendship through the seasons.
Soft watercolor illustrations and hand-lettered text tell the story of a snowman built and left in the woods. Wondering if his child-creators abandoned him because of his skinny arms, crooked smile or holey scarf, the snowman is discovered by an inquisitive rabbit. After introductions, they become fast friends. They talk about the snow and the sun, the stars and birds–until, of course, spring arrives. When the snowman disappears, the rabbit wonders if he did something wrong, or if his ears were too big or his nose too small. Unfortunately, the tale never addresses these great questions of insecurity, to which most children could relate. Instead, the story follows the rabbit through the seasons–frolicking and eating through the spring and summer, wondering where the flowers and animals disappear to in the autumn–until the first snowfall and the magical reappearance of the snowman. Reunited, they pick up their conversation where they had left off, friends once more. The measured cadence of long, leisurely sentences sets a relaxing tone, although young children may lose interest at times when listening to the wordier descriptions. A soothing pastel color palette complements the simple pen and ink with watercolor illustrations, some more skilled than others. Details from larger illustrations become charming border treatments that set off text, usually spoken and unspoken dialogue. While the book is light on facts and the story behind the development of the friendship between the snowman and the rabbit, the book is a gentle, if not compelling, preschool read. Discussion about what it means to be a good friend, as well as an opportunity to point out seasonal differences, arise naturally from the tale.
A pleasant story with pretty illustrations.Pub Date: June 19, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-419-65625-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
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