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THE TORTOISE TALES

Name: THE TORTOISE TALES
Author: Sally Scott Guynn
ISBN: 978-1-4808-5072-9

by Sally Scott Guynn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 2017

Natural history sometimes mixes uncomfortably with tall tales in these moralistic stories.

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This illustrated book for children offers nine stories about animals that combine fact, fancy, and life lessons.

An elderly tortoise (“at least 130 years old”) named Ezra tells Sally Scott, a young girl, several stories, beginning with his own. He offers facts about his shell and how he wound up in the Virginia area when “White humans were just beginning to build their many towns.” (If the book is set in the present day, this would make him much older than 130.) The tales that follow often teach a moral or underscore virtues, such as cooperation and courage. In “The Funky Monkey,” for example, Melton, a monkey, is called “Smelly Melly” by his troop because he hates keeping clean; the smell isn’t just unpleasant, it also creates a potential target for predators, so his troop exiles him. Melton falls into the river, which cleanses him, and then he saves his troop by pelting a stalking jaguar with mangoes. He’s welcomed back with open arms. A similar tale about Stinky, a goat, is resolved the same way: Stinky rescues friends, granting him social acceptance. These are presented as happy endings, but the message that one must be heroic to escape bullying and ostracism is a questionable one for kids. Each story is followed by a list of animal facts, including definitions of terms, and a final section includes discussion questions for each story with possible answers. In her debut, Guynn combines humorous shenanigans; an approachable, contemporary voice; and intriguing information about animals, informed by her career in wildlife conservation (she’s a former executive director of the National Conservation Leadership Institute). Her own illustrations, featuring soft black-and-white washes, are attractive and capture the animals’ personalities well. However, the stories’ anthropomorphism and selective sympathies can be misleading; although Guynn mentions the food chain, she also presents essential predators (such as jaguars or hawks) as unalloyed villains. Some of the book’s facts are also hazy—a rite of passage described as having been “recorded in history,” for example, overstates the case. The book could also have used a punctuation cleanup.

Natural history sometimes mixes uncomfortably with tall tales in these moralistic stories.

Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4808-5072-9

Page Count: 186

Publisher: Archway Publishing

Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S SPRINGTIME

From the Little Blue Truck series

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 2, 2018

Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.

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Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.

This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.

Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)