Children will cheer for Lulu and learn the importance of being themselves.
Lulu’s a fun-loving dog who flunks out of police-dog school only to discover that being herself is the greatest achievement of all.
Though Lulu is shunted into police-dog training because of her good sniffing skills, it quickly becomes clear that she is not a good fit for the work, despite well-meaning intervention and persistent effort. The “free spirit” is simply unable to perform the required doggy tasks. Lulu’s true place is in a home with a family—her handler’s, as it turns out. Throughout, the author is careful not to refer to the playful, happy Lulu in the pejorative—and this may seem a small point at first, but it is really the most important part of this joyful story. The one mention of “failure” is handled carefully: When the police-dog trainer exhorts Lulu to “be more like other dogs? You don’t want to fail, do you?” Lulu despairs, as she “had not known a dog could fail at anything.” Children weighed down by the conformist pressures of school, sports, and other activities will see that there are other ways to find one’s place in the world. The artwork is bright and dynamic, with lots of frenetic doggy movement; Lulu’s handler and her family present black; the police-dog trainer presents white.
Children will cheer for Lulu and learn the importance of being themselves. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7321-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
The story’s slight but allows kids to practice identifying and dealing with their own big feelings.
The diverse group of kids from All Are Welcome (2018) this time gathers in a vacant lot with tools in hand to clear the debris and make something new. But therein lies the rub: What should the something new be? While the exact nature of the disagreement is unfortunately not made clear to readers, the big feelings that the children exhibit are very clear (and for readers who need practice reading facial clues, there’s a labeled chart of 15 in the frontmatter). This book’s refrain is “How can I help? / What can we do?” And the answers, spread over several pages and not spelled out in so many words but rather shown in the illustrations, are: talk it through, compromise, and see things from another perspective. As a guide for dealing with feelings and problem-solving, the book is a bit slim and lacks a solid story to hook readers. But, as with its predecessor, its strength is again the diversity on display in its pages. There’s a rainbow of skin tones and hair colors as well as abundant variation in hair texture, several children exhibit visible disabilities, including one child who uses a wheelchair, and there are markers of religious and cultural diversity. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 29.6% of actual size.)
The story’s slight but allows kids to practice identifying and dealing with their own big feelings. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-57974-8
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
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