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THE TREE TOLD ME

Name: THE TREE TOLD ME
Author: Sophie Lescaut
ISBN: 978-1-4788-7374-7

by Sophie Lescaut ; illustrated by Thanh Portal ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 28, 2021

Disjointed and unremarkable.

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An unidentified narrator imparts wisdom learned from a tree in this French import.

Each spread begins with “The tree told me,” as if the tree is sharing nuggets of wisdom that humans can consider for improving their own lives (“The tree told me / to learn to wait”) or, at the very least, to simply contemplate. The opening statement, “The tree told me in the beginning we are almost nothing,” is accompanied by an image of a green shoot springing forth from an underground seedling. Unfortunately, some of the tree’s tips are vague: A spread in which the tree says “there are many ways” depicts eight birds standing on branches, merely looking in various directions. And some are utterly baffling: “The tree told me / that some things are unacceptable” features animals running in fear while mammoth, pitch-black hands reach toward the ground. The text’s unvarying structure becomes dull, and the tree’s advice lacks any sort of unifying throughline. Birds are depicted with intriguing textures, feather patterns, and colors, but some spreads feature off-kilter perspectives that are visually perplexing: An early spread looking up from the ground is so disorienting that the bird standing next to a tree appears unrealistically huge. Changes in font color and size distract more than they enhance, and the ending (the final piece of wisdom)—“that it takes a lot of time to grow up”— is abrupt. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.8-by-18.8-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Disjointed and unremarkable. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: May 28, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-4788-7374-7

Page Count: 24

Publisher: Reycraft Books

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
PRIVATE BEACH!
by Sophie Lescaut ; illustrated by Romina Martí

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LOVE FROM THE CRAYONS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 24, 2019

As ephemeral as a valentine.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS

- BOOK REVIEW
BATH TIME FOR THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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GOODNIGHT, CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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NO SAM! AND THE MEOW OF DECEPTION
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Mike Lowery

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

- SEEN & HEARD
Daywalt, Jeffers Collaborate on New ‘Crayons’ Book

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)