For his children’s debut, Pulitzer Prize–winner Breen sends a small frog with a sticky tongue and notably bad aim on an impromptu tour of New Orleans and environs. Hooking a passing dragonfly instead of a tasty mosquito, Stick gets literally carried away—hurtling out of the bayou, through a small town, past Antoine’s and other French Quarter landmarks, then out into the countryside, with sudden brief stops on a horse’s nose, a biker’s face and elsewhere. At last, with a fine disregard for the natural predator/prey relationship, Breen sends the weary amphibian winging home aboard a friendly heron. Though not so rich in plot or pratfalls as the likes of David Wiesner’s Tuesday (1991) or Jennifer Armstrong’s Once Upon A Banana (2006), illustrated by David Small, this comic outing is drawn with confident simplicity, and presented in a sequence of large, wordless, or nearly wordless, panels. A promising beginning. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8037-3124-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf.
A big, yellow hound dog has small, wonderful dreams.
Emma’s dreams are doggily simple. Rendered in gray, they manifest above her contentedly slumbering form: “singing, dancing, rolling in grass, splashing in water, going for walks,” and eating. After she wakes and eats, she naps again, sprawled on her back, tummy distended, the very picture of canine bliss. Pages turn, with Cooper’s lyrical text focusing on Emma and her sensations: “The days went on, shifting and taking shape, and now there were times when her whole body felt strange, but there was no stopping the days.” A gently curving line of overlapping Emmas, rising, stretching, scratching, shifting, and resettling, underscores time’s march. Adult readers may be anxious at this point, fearing Emma’s impending death with the page turn—but no, it turns out Emma’s been literally full of wonders, and she gazes mildly at a puppy emerging from her own body. Then there they are, seven little Emmas, and they now embody her dreams. Cooper’s brushy, loose watercolors, outlined in swoops of ink, complement his Emma-focused text. She resides in a human home, but her owner appears only as tan-skinned hands extending from the margin to offer a bowl of food, caress her snout, or towel off a pup. In this way, Cooper invites readers into Emma’s interiority, allowing them to sit quietly and wonder with her.
A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884763
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Baker (Big Fat Hen, 1994, etc.) engages in more number play, posing ducklings in every combination of groups, e.g., “Splashing as they leap and dive/7 ducklings, 2 plus 5.” Using a great array of streaked and dappled papers, Baker creates a series of leafy collage scenes for the noisy, exuberant ducklings to fill, tucking in an occasional ladybug or other small creature for sharp-eyed pre-readers to spot. Children will regretfully wave goodbye as the ducks fly off in neat formation at the end of this brief, painless introduction to several basic math concepts. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-292858-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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