Busy indeed! Board-book readers will tear this book up—but not in a good way.
Turn the textured tabs to follow a blue dinosaur from sunup to bedtime.
Each spread offers a four-line verse that describes the action of Dino and three more cartoon dinosaur pals. The verse doesn’t always trip off the tongue: “Run and chase. / Then eat some lunch. / Tasty leaves! / Crunch, chomp, munch!” Other, mostly predictable rhymes include “day” and “play”; “wash” and “splosh”; “fruit” and “cute”; and “bed” and “head.” Bold, bright colors are layered to create fanciful background scenery and illustrate Dino’s actions. Peach-colored mountains drip with sherbet-hued snow. Each spread includes a colored dot with the instruction: “Feel the tab and find the same pattern on the page.” Initially this seems straightforward. The first padded fabric tab is blue with bumpy teal spots, like Dino’s back. On the second spread, both the first and second tabs are visible, and each can be matched with a pattern on the page. But the second pattern is not included on the third spread, and the fish scales meant to match the shiny silver third tab are tiny—or are readers supposed to be looking at the similarly patterned droplets of water? Though the tabs are tactile, the matching elements to be found in the illustrations are not, so there is nothing to match by “feel.” Toddlers will just grab the glued-in tabs, destroying the book and creating potential choke hazards in the process.
Busy indeed! Board-book readers will tear this book up—but not in a good way. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-64568-2
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay.
Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw feels like he’s been running ever since his dad pulled that gun on him and his mom—and used it.
His dad’s been in jail three years now, but Ghost still feels the trauma, which is probably at the root of the many “altercations” he gets into at middle school. When he inserts himself into a practice for a local elite track team, the Defenders, he’s fast enough that the hard-as-nails coach decides to put him on the team. Ghost is surprised to find himself caring enough about being on the team that he curbs his behavior to avoid “altercations.” But Ma doesn’t have money to spare on things like fancy running shoes, so Ghost shoplifts a pair that make his feet feel impossibly light—and his conscience correspondingly heavy. Ghost’s narration is candid and colloquial, reminiscent of such original voices as Bud Caldwell and Joey Pigza; his level of self-understanding is both believably childlike and disarming in its perception. He is self-focused enough that secondary characters initially feel one-dimensional, Coach in particular, but as he gets to know them better, so do readers, in a way that unfolds naturally and pleasingly. His three fellow “newbies” on the Defenders await their turns to star in subsequent series outings. Characters are black by default; those few white people in Ghost’s world are described as such.
An endearing protagonist runs the first, fast leg of Reynolds' promising relay. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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