In a joint debut for both Thomas and Mai-Wyss, the unusual subject of the highly contagious nature of a yawn is combined with a whirlwind tour to create an amusing story that works despite the unlikely premise and a sing-songy rhyming text. A little girl named Sara doesn’t want to go to bed, although she is sleepy enough for one huge yawn that starts off a chain reaction. The yawn moves on to her mother, her dog, her father, her Aunt Lucy in Cuba and then on to the world. The yawn travels on to Paris in a funny scene with a yawning Eiffel Tower, and then to Africa, up in space, over China, Russia, and the Pacific Ocean, and on to South America. The yawns blow back into Sara’s neighborhood, with two tiny yawning birds perched on a fold-out flap of Sara’s pink house. Mai-Wyss uses her charming watercolors to great effect, illustrating some difficult concepts. Globally minded teachers and parents will enjoy helping children find the story’s locations on a globe or world map. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-58246-051-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
The can’t-miss subject of this Step into Reading series entry—a unicorn with a magic horn who also longs for wings—trumps its text, which is dry even by easy-reader standards. A boy unicorn, whose horn has healing powers, reveals his wish to a butterfly in a castle garden, a bluebird in the forest and a snowy white swan in a pond. Falling asleep at the edge of the sea, the unicorn is visited by a winged white mare. He heals her broken wing and she flies away. After sadly invoking his wish once more, he sees his reflection: “He had big white wings!” He flies off after the mare, because he “wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’ ” Perfectly suiting this confection, Silin-Palmer’s pictures teem with the mass market–fueled iconography of what little girls are (ostensibly) made of: rainbows, flowers, twinkly stars and, of course, manes down to there. (Easy reader. 4-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83117-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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