The common desire to fit in gets a silly, if not particularly clever or well-knit, take.
A slug with shell envy finds a worthy surrogate—and then something even better.
With a fine disregard for logic, internal or otherwise, Hendra sends her bright orange slug out to find a shell so that he can join the smiling snails in their play. After failed experiments with a tennis ball, an apple, and an alarm clock tied on his back (neat tricks, considering his total lack of limbs), he straps himself beneath a discarded doughnut. This draws a bird (“Quick, slither for your lives,” counterintuitively cry the snails to one another) that carries Norman off. Sliming himself free of the doughnut (which the bird also drops, for some reason) in midair, Norman falls onto a clothesline. The surprisingly nonharrowing experience has made him eager now to take to the air, so he somehow turns a pair of underpants into a stiff glider. Off he flies with a “Ta-da!” to leave readers admiring his resourcefulness and also, more than likely, disoriented by the story’s arbitrary swerves.
The common desire to fit in gets a silly, if not particularly clever or well-knit, take. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9032-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
A humorous, meandering approach to a life lesson about leading every day with benevolence.
To the consternation of the other six days of the week, Sunday quits in protest, tired of being unappreciated for her consistent delivery of a weekly “beautiful free day.”
Sunday’s abrupt decision prompts the others to look for her replacement with an advertisement inviting auditions before the remaining six days. The competition quickly grows increasingly fierce as ideas are broached for DogDay, Big-BurpDay, PieDay, Band-AidDay, and, ridiculously, FirepoleSlidingIntoPoolsOfCottonCandyDay. Amid all this boisterous and frenzied rivalry, a little girl approaches the misunderstood Sunday with a small plant to say thank you and to suggest “simply a nice day. A day when people can show more kindness to each other.” The child’s humble gratitude is enough for Sunday to return to her important weekly position and to prompt all the days to value kindness as the key to each day’s possibilities. Bright art captures the mania, with cotton-candy hues representing each of the anthropomorphic days. Though undeniably comical as it unfolds in busy cartoon illustrations and speech balloons, the drawn-out, nonsensical, and unexpected course the narrative takes may be a stretch for youngsters who cannot always distinguish among days. Kindness as the ingredient for achieving a harmonious week is nevertheless a valuable message, however circuitously expressed. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 50% of actual size.)
A humorous, meandering approach to a life lesson about leading every day with benevolence. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-55424-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
As vivid a demonstration of community as readers are likely to find.
Charity and caring for others—the Jewish concept of “tzedakah”—comes full circle in the story of a big sister who demonstrates generosity to a younger sibling through community outreach.
After she learns about tzedakah at the community center, Dalia comes home and creates a tzedakah box to begin saving for the center’s project. She inserts a dollar from her birthday money and tells her curious little brother, Yossi, that the box holds “a big yellow comforter.” With each new donation to the box earned from her gardening chores and lemonade sales, Dalia adds a butterfly bush and a banana cream pie. Yossi’s confusion grows; how can these things fit in what is essentially a piggy bank? Dalia kindly explains how her money, pooled with the other center participants’, will eventually buy all three for a lonely, homebound elderly woman. In joining his sister, Yossi learns that “Tzedakah means… doing the right things. It means thinking of others and giving them what they need.” Dressen-McQueen’s fully developed summer scenes in acrylic and oil pastel provide a vivid complement to the often–page-filling text, their naive, folk quality bringing great quantities of love and warmth to the tale.
As vivid a demonstration of community as readers are likely to find. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58246-378-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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