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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
Instills a sense of well-being in youngsters while encouraging them to explore the natural world.
This reassuring picture book exemplifies how parents throughout the animal kingdom make homes for their offspring.
The narrative is written from the point of view of a parent talking to their child: “If you were a beaver, I would gnaw on trees with my teeth to build a cozy lodge for us to sleep in during the day.” Text appears in big, easy-to-read type, with the name of the creature in boldface. Additional facts about the animal appear in a smaller font, such as: “Beavers have transparent eyelids to help them see under water.” The gathering of land, air, and water animals includes a raven, a flying squirrel, and a sea lion. “Home” might be a nest, a den, or a burrow. One example, of a blue whale who has homes in the north and south (ocean is implied), will help children stretch the concept into feeling at home in the larger world. Illustrations of the habitats have an inviting luminosity. Mature and baby animals are realistically depicted, although facial features appear to have been somewhat softened, perhaps to appeal to young readers. The book ends with the comforting scene of a human parent and child silhouetted in the welcoming lights of the house they approach: “Wherever you may be, you will always have a home with me.”
Instills a sense of well-being in youngsters while encouraging them to explore the natural world. (Informational picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63217-224-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Little Bigfoot/Sasquatch
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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