by Savannah Guthrie & Allison Oppenheim illustrated by Eva Byrne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 2018
Save your dollars for other bee books, other princess books, other books.
Princesses reintroduce honeybees to a place that needs them.
While this sequel to Princesses Wear Pants (2017) is sure to generate buzz due to author Guthrie’s celebrity, it’s every bit as lackluster as its predecessor. Stilted, forced rhyme tells a convoluted tale of Princess Penelope Pineapple’s efforts to bring honeybees to Princess Sabrina Strawberry’s kingdom (the former girl is depicted as white, the latter as black). The text never explains how the Strawberry Kingdom lost its pollinators, and the story presents the crisis as limited to a gardening problem (how will they make smoothies?), while the solution to the smoothie catastrophe is merely a matter of moving some of Penelope’s bees there. A multiracial cast of princesses descends and concocts a perfume of sorts to lure the bees, whose numbers are oddly small in the digital illustrations. Once they successfully pollinate the flora, a year passes and the princesses have a tea party with fruit pies. Throughout, Byrne’s uninspired digital illustrations vary little in their visual perspective, resulting in a dull presentation of the redundant visual narrative. To make this poor book even worse, the bland three-paragraph backmatter note about the current crisis in the honeybee population offers little substance and no resources beyond advice to “ask your teacher or a local librarian to direct you to some books or online resources about honeybees.”
Save your dollars for other bee books, other princess books, other books. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3171-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
by Savannah Guthrie & Allison Oppenheim ; illustrated by Eva Byrne
by Tim McCanna ; illustrated by Aimée Sicuro ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
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
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by Tim McCanna ; illustrated by Grace Lee
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by Tim McCanna ; illustrated by Tim McCanna
BOOK REVIEW
by Tim McCanna ; illustrated by Richard Smythe
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 13, 2024
A droll exploration of color and nature—and a welcome reminder to safeguard our planet.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wildly popular Crayons have an important ecological message.
Though climate change is never mentioned, the book nevertheless gently introduces responsibility for Planet Earth. As in previous titles, the main text is in a large black font, while the Crayons’ dialogue is presented in a smaller, gray font. Blue begins by showing off a blue-tinged image of the globe (land masses are depicted in a darker hue). Green takes over: “Yay, Trees! I did those!” Beige breaks in, pointing to a tiny wheat plant next to two large trees: “And wheat! I did the WHEAT!” Beige puts wheat front and center throughout—even on White’s drawing of mountaintop ice caps. When Red, Yellow, and Orange display drawings of various fruits, Beige interjects, “And WHEAT. Wheat is totally fruit.” Diplomatic Purple politely responds, “Um. NO. It is not.” Purple attempts to dissuade self-important Beige, but it all ends happily as the Crayons join hands and proclaim: “Our planet has all of us too, in many shapes, colors, and sizes.” Beige and Purple reconcile, with Beige adding, “And it’s our job to keep the planet safe.” Young children will easily absorb this positive message. Although these characters have had many outings, their quiet humor still succeeds, and fans will definitely want this new entry.
A droll exploration of color and nature—and a welcome reminder to safeguard our planet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593621080
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Alex Willmore
BOOK REVIEW
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
BOOK REVIEW
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers
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