With toys coming to life, all the fun in the snow, and the lovely child-grandparent relationship, this is a welcome addition...
With untouched snow outside, all a boy wants to do is to go to the park, but there is an obstacle.
While the boy gets ready, desperate to be the first child out in the snow, Granddad is reading in bed. He finally rises, but another child got there before him—and then a whole mob of them. Granddad insists on scarves and hats while putting on his own vest and tie. After all, decorum is important in this British import. While the child grows glum, bitterly remarking that even “all the cats and dogs were out there,” Granddad has the wit to observe that “the whole zoo was probably out there.” Little do they know that there is a menagerie having a snowball fight in a perfectly ordinary park. An elephant, a giraffe, and a walrus are among the participants, but the monkey and the penguin look familiar. Were they in the house? Usher uses large expanses of white space that increasingly show the traffic in the snow. His quirky ink-and-watercolor drawings are full of cavorting children and animals. A double-page spread depicting a calm elephant in a stocking hat, a girl and a frisky monkey perched on his tusks, is particularly amusing. Granddad looks wary, but he soon flings snowballs with the rest.
With toys coming to life, all the fun in the snow, and the lovely child-grandparent relationship, this is a welcome addition to the winter bookshelf. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7958-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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
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
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