It is said that one in every seven Americans has Brooklyn roots; this lively love song to Brooklyn’s 2.5 million people and...
An engaging and hip alphabetical trip through the largest and most populous of New York City’s five boroughs—Kings County—better known as Brooklyn.
The Canadian-born Alko embraces her adopted borough. She's a curious and avid collector of human experience and visual delights. The book is organized alphabetically but eccentrically. For example, "ornaments," "Ocean Parkway," "organic foods" and the "Old Stone House" (George Washington’s headquarters during the Battle of Brooklyn) all appear on the same letter “O” page. Despite these and other Brooklyn "insider" choices, readers will be attracted by the book’s kid-centric style and hold on for the Cyclonelike roller-coaster ride ("C"—"Coney Island") because of the book’s celebratory look and feel. Kaleidoscopic mixed-media pages (gouache and collage) are chockablock with vibrant images that fairly burst from the pages. A pleasantly informative author’s note and a rudimentary map attempt to orient and situate the reader. Though families who seek a simple and straightforward “A is for apple”–style alphabet book will be disappointed, the more venturesome will want to pay a visit to Brooklyn and return to sample the book's (and borough's) vitality over and over again.
It is said that one in every seven Americans has Brooklyn roots; this lively love song to Brooklyn’s 2.5 million people and nearly 82 square miles is a welcome celebration of its rich ethnic, culinary, racial and religious diversity. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9213-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color.
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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