Although well-meaning and important, this book neither fulfills its purpose nor broadcasts its message in a way that works...
Numerous studies have shown that the safest way for babies to sleep is in their cribs on their backs. This simple board book attempts to reinforce this important message to prevent sudden unexplained infant death.
The illustrations show a diverse group of infants and adults, both male and female, sharing gentle loving moments—hugging, cuddling, and playing together. A couple of nonrhyming lines of text on each double-page spread mention how much the adults enjoy spending time with their infants. “We’ll dance and sway, my bunny! / Each day is such a joy. // Tummy-time play, my peach. / I love to watch you grow.” Hartung’s calm, colorful illustrations feature mostly neutral facial expressions. The important reminder “In your crib, on your back, my love. / We’ll save the toys for play” comes nearly at the end of the book and depicts a white baby snoozing in proper position and with no blankets, pillows, or other impedimenta in sight. Concluding the book, “Tips for Safe Sleep” offer bullet points on best practices. With no backup information and no context, this book is unlikely to impress upon uninformed caregivers just how important it is to put their babies to bed on their backs. For the age children most at risk for SUID, the illustrations are not eye-catching enough to lead to requests for the book to be read again and again.
Although well-meaning and important, this book neither fulfills its purpose nor broadcasts its message in a way that works for infants and adults. (Board book. 0-1)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58536-377-3
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
Sure to have readers booking their own trips to catch the next brief but memorable solar eclipse.
A total solar eclipse brings a father and son closer together.
After learning in school about the eclipse’s impending arrival, a curious young boy excitedly figures out the best time and place to see it. His father agrees to transport him to the woods to view the eclipse, and the child describes everything that happens at various points—two months before the eclipse, then a month, a week, a day, an hour, a minute, and the exciting second before the sun slips behind the moon. Time seems to stand still, and the creatures in the woods are baffled by what appears to be an early nightfall. Then the countdown begins again, with the boy describing what happens after the eclipse—one second, one minute, one hour, one day, one year, and even longer. The moment has become a shared memory that enhances the bond between father and son and inspires future eclipse-chasing expeditions. Based on the author’s actual experience with his own son in 2017, this picture book features lively, child-friendly digital artwork filled with scenes of nature, matter-of-fact text that acknowledges the awesomeness of this rare phenomenon, and useful maps that chart the solar eclipse of 2017 and projected paths for future eclipses. Father and son are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sure to have readers booking their own trips to catch the next brief but memorable solar eclipse. (more information on eclipses) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781338608823
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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