A clever, humorous, and joyful tooth story.
A lost, inexperienced tooth fairy keeps a 5-year-old child waiting for her money in this debut picture book.
Lulu, a bespectacled White girl about to lose her first tooth, plans to spend her reward on a pony. At the same time, Trixie looks forward to her first assignment as a tooth fairy. When Lulu’s tooth pops out (with the help of a slammed door and string), Trixie plugs her assignment into her Fairy Positioning System and heads out. But instead of going to San Juan Island, Washington, she arrives in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, she meets Ratoncito, who collects the teeth of kids in Puerto Rico, and realizes she has to try again. After another false start, Trixie finally arrives, and Lulu uses her tooth fairy money to get a playmate—a hobby horse. The parallel stories of Lulu and Trixie only intersect in the one moment where both are in the same room in a sweet two-page spread. Ortiz’s digital cartoon illustrations give the impression of watercolors, with soft edges and invisible line work, presenting lush environments for Trixie’s travels. Richey’s accessible text features several vocabulary words that may challenge emergent readers (cavities, drenched). Some design choices add an extra oomph to action words like looped. The messages that a fairy should never give up and that different places have their own distinctive tooth traditions come through beautifully.
A clever, humorous, and joyful tooth story.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-578-89850-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: Bright Meadow Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A wandering effort, happy but pointless.
The perfect book for kids who love dragons and mild tacos.
Rubin’s story starts with an incantatory edge: “Hey, kid! Did you know that dragons love tacos? They love beef tacos and chicken tacos. They love really big gigantic tacos and tiny little baby tacos as well.” The playing field is set: dragons, tacos. As a pairing, they are fairly silly, and when the kicker comes in—that dragons hate spicy salsa, which ignites their inner fireworks—the silliness is sillier still. Second nature, after all, is for dragons to blow flames out their noses. So when the kid throws a taco party for the dragons, it seems a weak device that the clearly labeled “totally mild” salsa comes with spicy jalapenos in the fine print, prompting the dragons to burn down the house, resulting in a barn-raising at which more tacos are served. Harmless, but if there is a parable hidden in the dragon-taco tale, it is hidden in the unlit deep, and as a measure of lunacy, bridled or unbridled, it doesn’t make the leap into the outer reaches of imagination. Salmieri’s artwork is fitting, with a crabbed, ethereal line work reminiscent of Peter Sís, but the story does not offer it enough range.
A wandering effort, happy but pointless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3680-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite.
Humpty Dumpty, classically portrayed as an egg, recounts what happened after he fell off the wall in Santat’s latest.
An avid ornithophile, Humpty had loved being atop a high wall to be close to the birds, but after his fall and reassembly by the king’s men, high places—even his lofted bed—become intolerable. As he puts it, “There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” Although fear bars Humpty from many of his passions, it is the birds he misses the most, and he painstakingly builds (after several papercut-punctuated attempts) a beautiful paper plane to fly among them. But when the plane lands on the very wall Humpty has so doggedly been avoiding, he faces the choice of continuing to follow his fear or to break free of it, which he does, going from cracked egg to powerful flight in a sequence of stunning spreads. Santat applies his considerable talent for intertwining visual and textual, whimsy and gravity to his consideration of trauma and the oft-overlooked importance of self-determined recovery. While this newest addition to Santat’s successes will inevitably (and deservedly) be lauded, younger readers may not notice the de-emphasis of an equally important part of recovery: that it is not compulsory—it is OK not to be OK.
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-682-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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