A perfectly mild unpacking of the nuances and subtleties of boredom.
The oft-heard childhood phrase “I’m bored” becomes the jumping-off point for this philosophical picture book.
There is nothing to entertain or distract this child today, and so the protagonist becomes inquisitive about boredom. What does it mean exactly? Does everyone experience it? Even animals? Is life a continual dichotomy between fun and boring? Is boredom a matter of perspective? As the child demonstrates with bemusement, sometimes wandering through such answerless wonderings can itself be the antidote to boredom. Each page offers a thought experiment examining the nature of boredom sure to provoke curiosity and insight. This English translation of a book originally published in Japan in 2017 makes reference to Japanese culture through the illustrations; school children wear traditional uniforms, and adults sit cross-legged at tables low to the ground. All characters have the same paper-white skin, simple facial features, and brown or gray hair; the repetition of hairstyles, clothing, and facial expressions on the people emphasizes a sameness that is characteristic of boredom, yet even so, the illustrations are interesting and evocative. Adults and children will find this boring book a wonderful resource for sparking conversation. It’s a terrific reminder for readers of all ages that boredom is always optional.
A perfectly mild unpacking of the nuances and subtleties of boredom. (Picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7456-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
The team that taught students about nouns and verbs, punctuation and silent letters now tackles suffixes…almost literally. On the last day of school, when Mr. Wright announces, “After lunch and our read-aloud, we’ll tackle word endings,” the anthropomorphized suffixes head to the gym to get into shape for the coming melee. Meanwhile, the kids’ atrocious behavior in the lunchroom leads Mr. Wright to skip the read-aloud and go directly to the lesson. Except the lesson has disappeared. Threatened with no summer vacation unless they find the word endings, the kids hang (suffix-less) wanted posters all over the school. Reassured of the students’ good intentions, the suffixes leave clues for them to decode and thus find them, saving not only the kids’ educations but summer vacation as well. As in the previous titles, the words in the text are printed in two colors, allowing the suffixes to stand out from the rest of the text. Reed’s now-signature acrylic-and-digital illustrations are as quirky and colorful as ever. Backmatter includes a page of spelling rules for adding endings to words and a page delineating some different suffixes and how their additions change the root word. While this may not be as strong as the previous titles from this duo, still it is a good addition to their language-arts series. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2296-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
A late bloomer the size of a mosquito but with a personality as big as all outdoors wings across the pond from Australia to explain how life surrounded by much larger sibs goes from being “no skip in the bush” to "fluttering skippity" thanks to the discovery of an outsize singing voice. The notably colloquial text (“My arrival was a real gobdropper. ‘Stone the blowies! What is it?’ ”) skitters through major changes in size and type style as Peka-Boo carries his (or maybe her) account from laborious hatching to a triumphant sonic epiphany. This, represented in Feely’s wildly scribbled illustrations with huge bursts and curls of color, is realized in a last-ditch effort to attract the attention of old Kapecki, a near–blind-and-deaf kookaburra. Kapecki’s observation that “you can’t make worm pie from a stack of bracken” may leave readers on this side of the lake scratching their heads, but Peka-Boo’s exuberance is as catching as that of the sibling-under-the-skin narrator in Kevin Sherry’s I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean! (2007). (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-74175-541-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
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