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
BOOK REVIEW
A toy rabbit has an unexpected forest adventure. Little girl Ruby is scared of the woods, but Daddy reassures her that he'll keep her safe. Snugly bundled up and with stuffed bunny Rabby riding in her hood, Ruby goes through the gate to the woods, all golden leaves, with Daddy. Ruby is frightened when she sees a fox chasing rabbits, but Daddy explains that foxes need to catch rabbits for food. Ruby and Daddy are so busy talking that they don't see that Rabby has been snagged out of the hood and dangles from a branch. Before long, Foxy is after the toy (who wears a hooded coat that matches Ruby's), but, when he catches up to Rabby, something surprising happens. Coplestone’s lovely double-page watercolor spreads provide a wordless subtext in which Foxy and Rabby’s interaction is overdubbed by Daddy and Ruby's oblivious conversation, to sweetly humorous effect. Jones's book begins as a traditional "message" story but delights with a fantasy twist and a subtler bit of wisdom. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84507-956-7
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
Simplistic science with appealing illustrations and a catchy text.
A simple text slowly adds members of a marsh food chain, “House That Jack Built”–style, from mud to raptors.
A serene double-page spread with vivid sunrise colors and an early morning mist proclaims: “This is the marsh / in the middle of the meadow.” Equally artistically enticing pages follow, with: “This is the mucky mud / On the bottom of the marsh / In the middle of the meadow.” The text continues in the tradition of a cumulative folk rhyme, using colorful language that complements the vibrant art. “This is the big eagle / That swoops from up high / To grasp the fish / That gulp down the tadpoles / That slurp up the minnows….” Even at its very longest, the cumulative rhyme ends with “the reeds / That grow in the mucky mud / On the bottom of the marsh / In the middle of the meadow.” The fairly sophisticated content and vocabulary seem ill-suited to the nursery-rhyme format, begging the question of audience. As with many food-chain explanations aimed at children, the producer and consumer parts are well-developed, and the decomposers receive no mention. Is this because the decomposers would have to eat the dead remains from the other categories, and live eaglets are more appealing than anything dead? This is understandable, but it seems to force the audience to a younger range than the recommended early-elementary children.
Simplistic science with appealing illustrations and a catchy text. (author’s notes, glossary) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-58536-958-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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