Keep your bitcoins—you never know when somebody might need a button.
A broken-down captain and his young, peg-legged mate rediscover an ages-old system to rebuild their battered ship without spending a penny.
It’s called barter or swap, that mode of trade that requires not coinage but need. Light starts at the very beginning: the poor captain has a button, which doesn’t look very promising until a lady agrees to swap two teacups for the button, which the boy then turns around and swaps for three coils of rope. For two of the coils he gets six oars, and for two of the oars he gets six flags. Flags? Well, you never know where things may lead. Flags beget anchors that beget sails that beget ships’ wheels and birds and jaunty hats and a hand-carved figurehead. Next thing you know, the old wreck is not only seaworthy, but has a bit of dash. Light’s artwork is lightly amusing throughout, with a throng of crabbed ink lines busily filling the mostly white backgrounds, making the incidents of color—blue here, purple and orange there—the more sparkling. Complementing the smart artwork is a smart story: you don’t have to have a pocket full of gold to get by; wits often work just as well. Though the boy’s peg leg immediately conjures hoary old pirate tropes, these are honest, hard-working tars, and it’s a positive delight to see a disabled boy depicted as an equal participant in the economy.
Keep your bitcoins—you never know when somebody might need a button. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7990-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color . (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Fun enough to read once but without enough substance to last.
Familiar crayon characters argue over which color is the essential Christmas color.
Green starts by saying that green is for Christmas. After all, green is for holly. But Red objects. Red is for candy canes. Green is for fir trees, Green retorts. But Red is for Santa Claus, who agrees. (Santa is depicted as a white-bearded White man.) Then White joins the fray. After spending the year being invisible, White isn’t giving up the distinction of association with Christmas. Snow, anyone? But then there’s Silver: stars and bells. And Brown: cookies and reindeer! At this point, everyone is confused. But they come together and agree that Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without all of them together. Someone may get the last word, though. In Daywalt and Jeffers’ now-signature style, the crayon-written text is spare and humorous, while the crayon characters engage with each other against a bare white background, vying for attention. Dot-eyed faces and stick legs on each object turn them all into comical, if similar, personalities. But the series’ original cleverness is absent here, leaving readers with a perfunctory recitation of attributes. Fans of the crayon books may delight in another themed installment; those who aren’t already fans will likely find it lacking. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Fun enough to read once but without enough substance to last. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-35338-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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