Not the best thing since sliced bread—but warm and sweet nevertheless.
A title from the pantry shelf for the new-baby bookshelf.
Border’s Bent Objects photography personifies objects like peanut butter–slathered slices of bread, not with anthropomorphic faces but with limbs made of bent wire. Photographed scenes of little Peanut Butter talking with his parents (also depicted as pieces of peanut-buttered bread with wire limbs) while they are baking in the kitchen show him learning he’s going to be a big brother and worrying, “Is it hard?” His dad assures him, “Easy as Pie….You should ask her about it.” This wordplay with the idiom signals the entrance of a new foodstuffs character, Apple Pie, big sister to Blueberry and Cherry. Peanut Butter also seeks advice from Cucumber and Big Cheese. The culminating message that he just needs to be himself and to be loving is affirming, and it’s saved from treacle with a twist at book’s end that shows Peanut Butter arriving home to meet “a whole loaf of little brothers and sisters” and not just a new baby slice of bread. Missteps in pacing and phrasing may confuse readers along the way to this happy, bent ending—for example, a spread introduces little Pepper Jack in a photo before her mention in the text, which could lead some to assume she’s supposed to be her brother Big Cheese, tiny though she is.
Not the best thing since sliced bread—but warm and sweet nevertheless. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4006-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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