A stylish showcase for the artists, but the lack of connection between pictures and plotlines will limit its interest for...
Three food chains at work—at ground level, in the air, and in the ocean.
In each picture Ladd and Anderson pose a single realistic, somewhat plasticized model in a simplified natural setting made with cut and folded paper. Printed separately on accordion-folded leaves of heavy stock and packaged together in a slipcase, the three sequences can be read through or laid out on display with equal ease. With cumulative narratives running beneath, each follows a similar course. “High in the Sky, Everyone Is Hungry,” for instance, opens with elm leaves that “turn sunshine into food” until becoming food themselves for a woolly apple aphid that in turn falls prey to a ladybug who feeds a swallow and so on for three more levels of predation, up to a great horned owl snapping up a red-tailed hawk (unlikely but at least theoretically possible). Along with brief analyses at the end, silhouettes on the back sides of the pages show other foods in each creature’s diet. Though these do convey a general idea of how food chains work, it’s at best a bland and intellectualized one as, topic and the use of such words as “CHOMP!” and “GULP!” notwithstanding, predators and prey only appear in separate scenes, and there is no actual eating on view.
A stylish showcase for the artists, but the lack of connection between pictures and plotlines will limit its interest for younger audiences. (Informational board book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7148-7144-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A humorous, meandering approach to a life lesson about leading every day with benevolence.
To the consternation of the other six days of the week, Sunday quits in protest, tired of being unappreciated for her consistent delivery of a weekly “beautiful free day.”
Sunday’s abrupt decision prompts the others to look for her replacement with an advertisement inviting auditions before the remaining six days. The competition quickly grows increasingly fierce as ideas are broached for DogDay, Big-BurpDay, PieDay, Band-AidDay, and, ridiculously, FirepoleSlidingIntoPoolsOfCottonCandyDay. Amid all this boisterous and frenzied rivalry, a little girl approaches the misunderstood Sunday with a small plant to say thank you and to suggest “simply a nice day. A day when people can show more kindness to each other.” The child’s humble gratitude is enough for Sunday to return to her important weekly position and to prompt all the days to value kindness as the key to each day’s possibilities. Bright art captures the mania, with cotton-candy hues representing each of the anthropomorphic days. Though undeniably comical as it unfolds in busy cartoon illustrations and speech balloons, the drawn-out, nonsensical, and unexpected course the narrative takes may be a stretch for youngsters who cannot always distinguish among days. Kindness as the ingredient for achieving a harmonious week is nevertheless a valuable message, however circuitously expressed. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 50% of actual size.)
A humorous, meandering approach to a life lesson about leading every day with benevolence. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-55424-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
As vivid a demonstration of community as readers are likely to find.
Charity and caring for others—the Jewish concept of “tzedakah”—comes full circle in the story of a big sister who demonstrates generosity to a younger sibling through community outreach.
After she learns about tzedakah at the community center, Dalia comes home and creates a tzedakah box to begin saving for the center’s project. She inserts a dollar from her birthday money and tells her curious little brother, Yossi, that the box holds “a big yellow comforter.” With each new donation to the box earned from her gardening chores and lemonade sales, Dalia adds a butterfly bush and a banana cream pie. Yossi’s confusion grows; how can these things fit in what is essentially a piggy bank? Dalia kindly explains how her money, pooled with the other center participants’, will eventually buy all three for a lonely, homebound elderly woman. In joining his sister, Yossi learns that “Tzedakah means… doing the right things. It means thinking of others and giving them what they need.” Dressen-McQueen’s fully developed summer scenes in acrylic and oil pastel provide a vivid complement to the often–page-filling text, their naive, folk quality bringing great quantities of love and warmth to the tale.
As vivid a demonstration of community as readers are likely to find. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58246-378-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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