by Scott Menchin ; illustrated by Matt Phelan ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2017
A quiet, thoughtfully designed picture book with a strong message.
As a badger and a rabbit wait for a mysterious something, they enjoy a ramble through their forest home.
A badger, waking up early one morning, runs across a rabbit friend who appears to be waiting for something. As the two spend a contented day exploring their forest home, the badger keeps asking the rabbit what they are waiting for. “Does it have eyes?” the badger asks in a field of black-eyed Susans. “Does it have wings?” the badger asks as they gaze at butterflies. In this way the gentle story, with its equally unpretentious pencil-and-pastel illustrations, both intrigues readers with its central mystery and brings their attention to the natural world. The story is told through dialogue without quotation marks or dialogue tags, instead using different-colored type to distinguish the badger’s and rabbit’s voices. When the something the badger and rabbit are waiting for finally reveals itself—in a spread that requires a 90-degree turn, it is a reflective affirmation of the natural beauty the two have been looking at all day. The book’s well-thought-out design combines double-page spreads, spot, and bordered illustrations. The final illustration, very small and surrounded by the toned white space of the page, metaphorically hints at possibilities to be discovered beyond borders.
A quiet, thoughtfully designed picture book with a strong message. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-152-4
Page Count: 37
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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by Jimmy Fallon ; illustrated by Miguel Ordóñez ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2015
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
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SEEN & HEARD
by George Shannon ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2015
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.
A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.
Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
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