While little Emmy appears sweet, her looks are deceiving. She superglues her sister’s skateboard to her dollhouse, claims her family’s possessions as pirate loot and steals her brother’s lizard for a bikini-clad bath-time swim. Emmy masterminds a (practically) foolproof plan to avoid trouble through tantrums and sulking. Her mother initially dismisses her poor choices—“after all…She’s only three”—though Emmy’s manipulation eventually runs its course. “I sadly closed my bedroom door. / I may be here until I’m four.” Parkins’s pen-and-ink cartoons utilize disproportionate facial features for comical effect. Watercolors provide dashes of varied colors against bright white backgrounds. Emmy is physically charming: Her rosy cheeks, disheveled hair and bare feet convey a youthful exuberance. Her animated expressions perfectly capture her scheming antics. Wearing solid oversized shirts, striped leggings and matching ribbons, she pouts her way into her family’s hearts. Although the verse doesn’t have the suppleness of Silverstein, it does partake of his subversiveness. Overall, the result is a youngster more exasperating than endearing, one that many an older sibling will recognize with grim delight. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9799746-4-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flashlight Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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