by Steve Light ; illustrated by Steve Light ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2015
Gently educational and greatly entertaining.
A little girl searches for her monster in every corner of the county fair.
She asks readers to help her locate her not-very-frightening, curly-haired monster as she visits and enjoys exhibits, rides, games, food vendors and more. Hiding sometimes in plain sight and sometimes more obscurely, he is everywhere she goes. He rides the carousel, flies a kite, indulges in snacks and marches in a parade. Of course she finds him just in time to go home. Light follows up on the techniques employed in his earlier Have You Seen My Dragon? (2014). Busy, black, pen-and-ink line drawings set the scene, capturing all the details of a county fair. Although the monster is purple and the girl is in full color on the cover, they are depicted in black line throughout the work. Simple sentences in large print are prominently placed within the illustrations, and a black banner with white lettering announces the names of brightly colored shapes. A square, rectangle, triangle and circle each make an appearance, along with other familiar shapes. But watch for a quatrefoil, trapezium, nonagon and curvilinear triangle as well. Young readers will be happily engaged in searching for the monster, and finding and identifying the shapes, all the while enjoying the excitement and fun of the fair.
Gently educational and greatly entertaining. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7513-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
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by Jimmy Fallon ; illustrated by Miguel Ordóñez ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 9, 2015
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
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SEEN & HEARD
by George Shannon ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2015
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.
A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.
Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
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