A serviceable reminder of how to have fun the old-fashioned way.
When the power goes out, kids who love screen time discover other ways to enjoy themselves in this illustrated children’s book.
The first question Isabelle and her little brother Joe have for their parents in the morning is “Can we watch?” Their parents try to teach good manners: the kids should say good morning first, ask more politely, and remember to brush their teeth, make the bed, and have breakfast before watching TV, and then they’re allowed only one show. One morning, just as Isabelle and Joe have again asked to watch TV, the power fails. The lights go off, the fridge stops humming, and the TV stays dark. “You’ll have to think of some other way to have fun,” says the kids’ mom. The family plays Old Maid; Isabelle and Joe ride their bikes; they have peanut-butter–and-jelly sandwiches for lunch; they do jigsaw puzzles; and after dinner, the family plays charades by candlelight. The power comes back on at bedtime after a fun day for everyone. The next morning, instead of asking to watch, Isabelle asks to play board games, and Joe agrees. The illustrations, flattish and awkwardly rendered, show action and emotion and depict a black-haired family with light brown skin, perhaps Latino, with both parents participating in child care and meal preparation. S.A. Dymond (Exonerated, 2016) and his daughter Shiloh Dymond, a first-grader co-authoring her debut book, tell a simple tale that could dip into moralizing but focuses instead on how much fun the family has when they entertain themselves. The book succeeds in making card games, bicycling, puzzles, and charades seem more engaging than TV shows. Some of these activities require parental participation, others don’t, making a good balance between supervision and independence. Screen-happy kids may not be convinced, of course, and the Dymonds load the deck by offering no scenarios of less enjoyable nonscreen play, like when kids bicker over or get bored by games. Still, the book is a good way to introduce ideas about politeness and nonscreen family entertainment.
A serviceable reminder of how to have fun the old-fashioned way.Pub Date: June 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9969677-3-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chunky Pops Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
In her first children's book, Parton (the country music star) turns one of her songs into a saccharine tale about a girl who is so poor that her mama has to sew her a patchwork coat when the weather turns cold. (Joseph and his coat of many colors are mentioned but never explained.) Despite the girl's love for her coat, she is teased in school, which she counters by trying to explain to her classmates ``that one is only poor/if they choose to be.'' The logic here is as flawed as the grammar, and Sutton's illustrations, while competent, show a well-dressed, happy rural family who look anything but poor. The text is both clumsy and irrelevent (it ends with ``Through life I've remained happy/and good luck is on my side./I have everything that anyone/could ever want from life.'') An apparently autobiographical song that has a hard time standing on its own as a compelling children's story. (Picture book. All ages)
Pub Date: Sept. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-023413-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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IN THE NEWS
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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