Inconsistent, but an evergreen topic.
Meditations about crying.
“Sometimes, when our hearts hurt, our eyes fill up and we cry,” opens the text, thankfully segueing quickly to a less-cloying register. Much of Delacroix’s piece is straightforward and affirming, explaining who cries—“Everyone cries. Little kids. Big kids. / Once in a while, grownups cry”—and why: “Crying cleans our messy feelings,” and after doing it, “we feel lighter, ready for new adventures.” One page undermines this acceptance: Across from a child portraying the “times we keep [tears] to ourselves” (face buried in arms) is a child portraying the times “we want our tears to be seen” with a dramatic hand gesture, a theater spotlight, and curtains evoking a stage. Readers shy about crying may shrink away if they think their weeping could be seen as a theatrical performance. Cryptic details pop up: “Crocodiles, with their thick, scaly skin, cry too”—but the young audience will likely have no context for crocodile tears, either metaphoric or biological; “sometimes even trees weep”—but is that an unspoken weeping-willow pun, a reference to transpiration, or something deeper? Art combines teardrop patterns with a photorealistic drawing style, mostly black-and-white, featuring shading and big-eyed close-ups of the two White-presenting children who are featured. Cleverly, tears threatening “to wash everything away” form an ocean; a rising hot air balloon drops a ballast bag of tears; and one child’s tears form a park fountain.
Inconsistent, but an evergreen topic. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77147-422-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A disappointing follow-up.
Inventor Izzy Gizmo is back in this sequel to her eponymous debut (2017).
While busily inventing one day, Izzy receives an invitation from the Genius Guild to their annual convention. Though Izzy’s “inventions…don’t always work,” Grandpa (apparently her sole caregiver) encourages her to go. The next day they undertake a long journey “over fields, hills, and waves” and “mile after mile” to isolated Technoff Isle. There, Izzy finds she must compete against four other kids to create the most impressive machine. The colorful, detail-rich illustrations chronicle how poor Izzy is thwarted at every turn by Abi von Lavish, a Veruca Salt–esque character who takes all the supplies for herself. But when Abi abandons her project, Izzy salvages the pieces and decides to take Grandpa’s advice to create a machine that “can really be put to good use.” A frustrated Izzy’s impatience with a friend almost foils her chance at the prize, but all’s well that ends well. There’s much to like: Brown-skinned inventor girl Izzy is an appealing character, it’s great to see a nurturing brown-skinned male caregiver, the idea of an “Invention Convention” is fun, and a sustainable-energy invention is laudable. However, these elements don’t make up for rhymes that often feel forced and a lackluster story.
A disappointing follow-up. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68263-164-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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