A classic reboot that feels fresh.
A small rosebud living in her cozy underground space is urged by two new friends to sprout above the earth and blossom into a beautiful flower.
Feeling safe in her warm, dark home, Rosebud is disturbed by Rain’s knocking and then Sun’s cheery rustling at the window. These new friends insist that Rosebud allow them to enter, giving her the necessary ingredients for growth. With Rain and Sun’s encouragement—“Poke your head through!”—little pink Rosebud finds herself in a blooming spring garden. Shand retells a story originated by the early-20th-century children’s storyteller Bryant, ever so lightly desentimentalizing it while retaining the feel of the simple, repetitive dialogue of the original: “It’s the Rain and the Sun.…It’s the Sun and the Rain.…And we want to come in! We want to come in!” Opaque colors create a small, brown-toned room with door and curtained window and a surprised Rosebud sitting in a large green armchair. The smiling faces of a sun and a puffy white cloud represent Rosebud’s uninvited, equally anthropomorphized visitors. A careful review of the room reveals a clock on the wall with the four stages of germination, hinting at the story’s theme, which culminates aboveground in the glowing greens and pastels of springtime. A brief addendum relates the process. Though the scientific explanation is rudimentary, the fictional narrative employed will make it accessible to young listeners.
A classic reboot that feels fresh. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4867-1555-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful.
Life buzzes in a community garden.
Surrounded by apartment buildings, this city garden gets plenty of human attention, but the book’s stars are the plants and insects. The opening spread shows a black child in a striped shirt sitting in a top-story window; the nearby trees and garden below reveal the beginnings of greenery that signal springtime. From that high-up view, the garden looks quiet—but it’s not. “Sleepy slugs / and garden snails / leave behind their silver trails. / Frantic teams of busy ants / scramble up the stems of plants”; and “In the earth / a single seed / sits beside a millipede. / Worms and termites / dig and toil / moving through the garden soil.” Sicuro zooms in too, showing a robin taller than a half-page; later, close-ups foreground flowers, leaves, and bugs while people (children and adults, a multiracial group) are crucial but secondary, sometimes visible only as feet. Watercolor illustrations with ink and charcoal highlights create a soft, warm, horticulturally damp environment. Scale and perspective are more stylized than literal. McCanna’s superb scansion never misses, incorporating lists of insects and plants (“Lacewings, gnats, / mosquitos, spiders, / dragonflies, and water striders / live among the cattail reeds, / lily pads, and waterweeds”) with description (“Sunlight warms the morning air. / Dewdrops shimmer / here and there”). Readers see more than gardeners do, such as rabbits stealing carrots and lettuce from garden boxes.
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1797-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Animated and educational.
A hare and a ground squirrel banter about the differences between related animals that are often confused for one another.
Jack is “no Flopsy, Mopsy, or Cottontail,” but a “H-A-R-E, hare!” Like sheep and goats, or turtles and tortoises, rabbits and hares may look similar, but hares are bigger, their fur changes color in the winter, and they are born with their eyes wide open. As the ground squirrel (not to be mistaken for a chipmunk (even though Jack cheekily calls it “Chippie”) and Jack engage in playful discussion about animals, a sneaky coyote prowls after them through the Sonoran Desert. This picture book conveys the full narrative in spirited, speech-bubbled dialogue set on expressive illustrations of talking animals. Dark outlines around the characters make their shapes pop against the softly blended colors of the desert backgrounds. Snappy back-and-forth paired with repetition and occasional rhyme enhances the story’s appeal as a read-aloud. As the story progresses, the colors of the sky shift from dawn to dusk, providing subtle, visual bookends for the narrative. One page of backmatter offers a quick guide to eight easily confused pairs, and a second turns a subsequent exploration of the book into a seek-and-find of 15 creatures (and one dessert) hidden in the desert. Unfortunately, while most of the creatures from the seek-and-find appear in poses that match the illustrations in the challenge, not all of them are consistently represented. (This book was reviewed digitally with 7-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 53.3% of actual size.)
Animated and educational. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-12506-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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