Big questions, simply put and answered, perhaps, as well as they can be.
A parental meditation on time’s elusive nature.
Like the TIMES newspaper truck drifting through early-morning streets at the beginning, Jacoby’s narrative is more often allusive than direct. “You can almost touch it,” she writes. “Some people pay a lot of attention to it. / Some don’t.” Small figures—notably three, two adults and one child—occupy a set of impressionistic urban and country scenes that begin with breakfast and a rush to catch a train, then move on to an idyllic visit with grandparents. Observations of time’s passage, which can be slow or “quick as a heartbeat skip hello,” parallel images in the pictures that play subtly on the theme, such as a toy train to contrast with the full-size one, or one parent and the mini-me child in identical poses. Following sequential views of a trip to the beach to make an elaborate sand castle and then watch it wash away (“Where does it go?”), a campfire singalong in piney woods, and a goodbye clinch, a night train back to the shimmering city leads to a cozy bedtime. What’s the upshot? “We’ve only got what we’ve got,” and the best we can do with that is to “love the time I have with you.” The couple and their child are pale-skinned (one child and a parent sporting identical mops of frizzy, brown hair, and the other parent with long, black hair), but they travel amid an amusingly lively crowd that is diverse in both race and age.
Big questions, simply put and answered, perhaps, as well as they can be. (Picture book. 6-8, adult)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6463-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Inspiration, shrink wrapped.
From an artist, poet, and Instagram celebrity, a pep talk for all who question where a new road might lead.
Opening by asking readers, “Have you ever wanted to go in a different direction,” the unnamed narrator describes having such a feeling and then witnessing the appearance of a new road “almost as if it were magic.” “Where do you lead?” the narrator asks. The Road’s twice-iterated response—“Be a leader and find out”—bookends a dialogue in which a traveler’s anxieties are answered by platitudes. “What if I fall?” worries the narrator in a stylized, faux hand-lettered type Wade’s Instagram followers will recognize. The Road’s dialogue and the narration are set in a chunky, sans-serif type with no quotation marks, so the one flows into the other confusingly. “Everyone falls at some point, said the Road. / But I will always be there when you land.” Narrator: “What if the world around us is filled with hate?” Road: “Lead it to love.” Narrator: “What if I feel stuck?” Road: “Keep going.” De Moyencourt illustrates this colloquy with luminous scenes of a small, brown-skinned child, face turned away from viewers so all they see is a mop of blond curls. The child steps into an urban mural, walks along a winding country road through broad rural landscapes and scary woods, climbs a rugged metaphorical mountain, then comes to stand at last, Little Prince–like, on a tiny blue and green planet. Wade’s closing claim that her message isn’t meant just for children is likely superfluous…in fact, forget the just.
Inspiration, shrink wrapped. (Picture book. 6-8, adult)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-26949-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
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