Torn- and cut-paper collage pictures without words begin with a view of the earth from distant outer space and, with each turn of the page, zoom in toward the planet. Readers see the earth from the moon; moving down into the atmosphere, the North American coastline comes into view. That becomes an aerial view of a landscapemountains, rivers, fields, and a town. The approach to a town is shown in a series of rather realistic images that look like photographs taken from the window of an airplane coming in for a landing. Each picture represents the enlargement of a portion of the previous picture, seeming to click in closer so that new details appear each time, but their location can be traced back through the preceding pages; this process makes readers pause again and again to examine the illustrations more closely. Finally, a group of houses gives way to one house, in front of which a boy kneels, scrutinizing a ladybug through a magnifying glass. A huge close-up of the insect is the last picture in the book. The illustrations have been honed to map-like precision; reading this book forces an understanding of how different maps fit together. As with Banyai's Zoom (p. 220) and Re-Zoom (see review, above), Jenkins's original idea may have been to hurtle viewers in the direction he chose (in this case, ever closer to the scene), but the book reads equally well backwards. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-395-72665-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers with a generous tolerance for quirkiness will find that this seasonal tale, that’s also a bit about little brothers,...
Penguin, always visible with his orange scarf, wonders what fall looks like in other places—and so does his little brother, Pumpkin.
Penguin and friends shove off on an ice floe to find fall, but Pumpkin is too small to come along. After some floating, they find a farm, which is full of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. But what really captivates Penguin is the multicolored leaves falling everywhere. Riding in a hollowed-out pumpkin, the group tows another one that’s full of treasures (including books) back home, along with a treat that will show little Pumpkin just what fall looks like. The lines and shapes are muscular and graphic, and the palette is dominated, of course, by shades of orange and the blues and whites of ocean and ice. Pumpkin himself, meanwhile, has imagined fall in a number of other sorts of places with his “space-tacular imagination.” All the penguins have hats or mufflers or glasses or other distinguishing accessories in this series’ odd sort of anthropomorphic community.
Readers with a generous tolerance for quirkiness will find that this seasonal tale, that’s also a bit about little brothers, adventures and the endless diversity of pumpkins, hits the spot. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8027-3732-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
A warm invitation for children to find mastery and calm in looking.
In this companion to Listen (2021), illustrated by Stephanie Graegin, Snyder encourages children to develop perceptive looking and pattern-seeking as coping tools for the frequent visual overwhelm of daily life.
A pregnant parent and a child—both ginger-haired and white-presenting—navigate a busy autumn day, with stops at a garden, a farmers market, a pond, and a wooded trail. The child carries a sketchbook gifted by the parent, making drawings of patterns spied in textiles, butterfly wings, and the starry night sky. Throughout, the text directly addresses readers, pointing out patterns, encouraging them to find others, and suggesting physical activities that add kinesthetic possibilities for pattern-finding. Snyder identifies the striped pattern made by a kitchen chair’s cast shadow—“Light, dark, light, dark”—then asks, as the pair leave the house, “Where else can you discover stripes?” Cotterill’s hand-built mixed-media constructions, replete with 2-D painted inserts of diverse people, flora, and fauna, embody the visual cacophony of Snyder’s text. A lively farmers market scene contains visual depth, colorful details, and plenty of discoverable patterns. The walk home leads the parent and child through woods teeming with mushrooms, bright leaves, and wildlife. The occasional blurring of the photographed backgrounds is a bit jarring, evoking more a camera’s eye than a child’s visual experiences.
A warm invitation for children to find mastery and calm in looking. (glossary, pattern activities) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781665905404
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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