A silly, inspiring story of a princess who makes her scientific dreams come true.
After numerous setbacks, Princess Pippa achieves her dream of becoming a groundbreaking scientist and inventor.
Even though she lives in a castle, Princess Pippa is not interested in becoming just another curtsying royal. Instead, she spends hours in her laboratory, dreaming of making discoveries that will win her prizes. Lofty ambitions notwithstanding, the majority of Pippa’s chemical forays have been disastrous: In the past, she’s invented brittle bubble gum, soap that turns fingers blue, and bad-smelling mouthwash. Finally, one night at dinner, inspiration strikes. After much experimentation—using a pea, a cocoa bean, and the titular petri dish—Pippa creates peas that tastes like chocolate, so tasty that everyone in the entire kingdom takes to sprinkling them on all of their food at every meal. But just when Pippa is about to celebrate, the pea vines grow faster and faster, spreading beyond the castle walls. Pippa’s scientific prowess is put to the test one more time, when she must invent something to slow down the plants’ growth—and still preserve the delicious peas the kingdom has come to love. Fleiss’ lilting, rhyming abcb verse is a delight to read, and Pippa’s quirky perseverance stands as an endearing example for young budding scientists of all genders. Bouloubasis’ fantastical illustrations are vibrant with movement, color, and detail, but few characters in this kingdom are diverse. The royal family is white.
A silly, inspiring story of a princess who makes her scientific dreams come true. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8075-6644-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A quiet, tender, and profoundly moving celebration of intergenerational love.
This tale based on Scott’s boyhood experiences with his Polish grandmother traces the daily routines of a child and their beloved Baba.
In her first appearance, Baba is bathed in the sunlight streaming through her kitchen window, a bent Madonna in a sweater and slippers. She brings the young narrator a large bowl of oatmeal with pickles, cabbage, and beets before they walk to school, a jar at the ready to collect worms for Baba’s garden. Later, the child wonders why she does this, and Baba dips her finger into rainwater and traces the lines on the youngster’s hand. Author and illustrator allow readers to discern how communication occurs in the absence of a common spoken language—and what it means. The protagonist’s mother offers context when she relays that the garden and the presence of food in every nook and cranny result from earlier scarcity. Scott’s poetic sensibilities distill the days into meaningful moments and images, sometimes captured in similes: The woman “hums like a night full of bugs.” Smith’s warm gouache-and-watercolor scenes are filled with gentle gestures and connection. Later, when Baba moves in with the family, a wordless sequence—in which her grandchild brings her breakfast—is a beautifully crafted callback to the poignant ritual seen earlier in the story. Characters are tan-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A quiet, tender, and profoundly moving celebration of intergenerational love. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-8234-5083-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A visual feast teeming with life.
A young urbanite romps through floral fields and deep into a flower’s anatomy, exploring humanity’s connection to nature.
A solo car travels away from the dense, gray cityscape. Mountains rise up, full of pattern and light, before revealing a fluorescent field of flowers. A child bursts from the car across the page, neon-rainbow hair streaming in the wind, as both child and place radiate joy and life. The brown-skinned, blue-eyed youngster breathes in the meadow and begins an adventure—part Jamberry, part “Thumbelina,” and part existential journey as the child realizes the life force running through the veins of the flower is the same that runs through all of us, from the water that sustains to the sun that grows. Harris’ colored-pencil illustrations are full of energy and spontaneity. His use of patterning and graphic symbology evoke Oaxacan design, yet the style is all his own. The text is equally enthusiastic: “Have you ever seen / a flower so deep / you had to shout / HELLO / and listen for an echo / just to know / how deep it goes?” The text shifts abruptly from metaphor to metaphor, in one spread the flower likened to a palace and a few pages later, to human anatomy. Nevertheless, like the protagonist and the natural environment, readers will feel themselves stretch and bloom.
A visual feast teeming with life. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4521-8270-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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