Bright, childlike illustrations and appended facts about the universe can’t save this less-than-stellar ride.
A group of friends blasts off in an imaginary rocket to space in a text set to the tune of “The Green Grass Grows All Around.”
Three kids, plus a few animal companions, make a rocket ship out of a cardboard box. Suddenly, they are in space with stars and planets all around them! The text can be sung along with the accompanying CD (which also has an animation of the book that can be viewed on a computer). It follows the tune well enough (some quick blurring of syllables sometimes helps), but it is puzzling as to why it was set to music in the first place. The chorus is of course fun to belt out: “And the bright stars shine all around, all around, / And the bright stars shine all around.” But the rest is just a string of facts, squeezed to fit the song. The song descends from the Milky Way to the solar system to its eight planets to the Earth and then back out to the moon and the stars. It’s likely the book would have to be read (and the CD played or watched) multiple times before the facts sink in, so compressed are they to fit the tune: “And around that earth / orbits a moon. / Turning every month, / tugging at the tides.” Any storytime rendition would rely heavily on the excitement of the chorus alone.
Bright, childlike illustrations and appended facts about the universe can’t save this less-than-stellar ride. (Informational picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-78285-097-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Readers will close this book loving their small part of the world a little more.
This picture book seems to contain everything in the world.
Everything in this story is connected to everything else. An acorn, held by a child, appears on the opening pages: “Within it grows a forest.” Following a spread of trees in a wood, we’re told, “And within that forest / towers an oak tree, tall and grand.” Scientifically minded adults may be reminded of an atom, too small to see but filled with quarks and neutrons and electrons. Later, the child catches a raindrop and starts to imagine where it came from—from “the depths of the sea” to a rain cloud to the child’s hand, and if it had landed back in the ocean, it might have kept traveling to a distant shore. Conti’s illustrations show the child watching that shore through a spyglass. Some of the items in the illustrations are a little frightening, like the rain cloud, painted in the heaviest blues and grays and blacks. But they’re beautiful, too. The fields of grass appear to contain every shade of green. Every item in the book, even a grain of sand, is as beautiful in both its simplicity and complexity. The child and other characters who appear are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers will close this book loving their small part of the world a little more. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780762479870
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
The delicate, rhyming text and gorgeous, warm illustrations make this a lovely book for snuggling up with a young child on a...
A newborn baby is introduced to the beauty of nature season by season through rhyming text and accompanying charming illustrations.
The book opens with a striking double-spread illustration depicting a bright new day, a pale-skinned newborn baby, and the light over the ocean. From there, the gentle rhyme in a parent’s voice introduces the baby to the gift of the world: the seasons’ slow change, animals in their various habitats, and the progression of day into night. McCleary’s text reads like a lullaby, lilting gently despite occasional awkward phrasing. The rhyming couplets make it an ideal bedtime story: “I give to you the day that’s done, / the fading light, the sinking sun.” Saldaña’s inviting illustrations encourage readers to pause and admire. There are opportunities to look at tiny details that go beneath the text, such as frogs eating flies, deer in the distance, and ants crawling up a blade of grass. As a lovely way to bring the story full circle, the illustration of the ocean in the morning in the beginning is echoed by the moon rising over that same ocean at the end. This book narrowly dodges the cloyingly sweet thanks to these charming illustrations, the book’s greatest strength.
The delicate, rhyming text and gorgeous, warm illustrations make this a lovely book for snuggling up with a young child on a lap . (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68010-082-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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