by Timothy Orley ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2018
Enjoyable scenarios where silliness rules.
Nonsense verse for young readers explores a comical world.
In his debut collection, Orley imagines humorous, often absurd situations, presented in no particular order. While all the verses rhyme, the scheme varies, usually scanning well with a good rhythm. Sometimes the perspective is from a grown-up, sometimes that of a child. For example, in the title verse, an adult bemoans having to go to work, so he phones his boss to call in well. He then goes on to enjoy his day, which includes chocolate milk and cake for breakfast, taking an enjoyable walk in the park, chatting with people he meets in the city square, and expressing his joie de vivre. He’s even happy to greet a snake in the park, discovering that “The more friendly that you are to snakes, / The more friendly they [are] to you.” Though bosses and parents might disagree, readers of any age can appreciate the desire to skip responsibilities and thoroughly explore what life has to offer. Some verses offer moral reflections, as in “Dear Santa,” in which the speaker requests an extravagant list of gifts (castle, roller coaster, pet dinosaur), but finally asks “So just keep my family safe and warm, / And this will be enough.” That’s a bit pious, but the effort is more effective in “Good News,” where the speaker—upset by the news on TV—goes out to observe the neighborhood and sees much to encourage him: “A lady picking up some trash and cleaning up the street; / A little boy with his dog, feeding him a treat.” That’s a useful reminder for anyone, child or adult. But most verses simply describe absurdities, as with “Ben Backward” (every sentence is written with the word order reversed) or “My Very Own Language,” which is enjoyably Jabberwockian, including an entire stanza of nonsense: “Herpa ma vert, / Nop flock hocktoodle, / Sim sim malim, / Kicky kapoodle.” The uncredited illustrations are colorful and depict diversity but are flat and lack background detail.
Enjoyable scenarios where silliness rules.Pub Date: July 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-3174-5
Page Count: 78
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Marion Dane Bauer ; illustrated by Ekua Holmes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018
Wow.
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Best Books Of 2018
Coretta Scott King Book Award Winner
The stories of the births of the universe, the planet Earth, and a human child are told in this picture book.
Bauer begins with cosmic nothing: “In the dark / in the deep, deep dark / a speck floated / invisible as thought / weighty as God.” Her powerful words build the story of the creation of the universe, presenting the science in poetic free verse. First, the narrative tells of the creation of stars by the Big Bang, then the explosions of some of those stars, from which dust becomes the matter that coalesces into planets, then the creation of life on Earth: a “lucky planet…neither too far / nor too near…its yellow star…the Sun.” Holmes’ digitally assembled hand-marbled paper-collage illustrations perfectly pair with the text—in fact the words and illustrations become an inseparable whole, as together they both delineate and suggest—the former telling the story and the latter, with their swirling colors suggestive of vast cosmos, contributing the atmosphere. It’s a stunning achievement to present to readers the factual events that created the birth of the universe, the planet Earth, and life on Earth with such an expressive, powerful creativity of words paired with illustrations so evocative of the awe and magic of the cosmos. But then the story goes one brilliant step further and gives the birth of a child the same beginning, the same sense of magic, the same miracle.
Wow. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7883-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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by Betsy Franco ; illustrated by Priscilla Tey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2022
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two.
Rollicking verses on “numerous” topics.
Returning to the theme of her Mathematickles! (2003), illustrated by Steven Salerno, Franco gathers mostly new ruminations with references to numbers or arithmetical operations. “Do numerals get out of sorts? / Do fractions get along? / Do equal signs complain and gripe / when kids get problems wrong?” Along with universal complaints, such as why 16 dirty socks go into a washing machine but only 12 clean ones come out or why there are “three months of summer / but nine months of school!" (“It must have been grown-ups / who made up / that rule!”), the poet offers a series of numerical palindromes, a phone number guessing game, a two-voice poem for performative sorts, and, to round off the set, a cozy catalog of countable routines: “It’s knowing when night falls / and darkens my bedroom, / my pup sleeps just two feet from me. / That watching the stars flicker / in the velvety sky / is my glimpse of infinity!” Tey takes each entry and runs with it, adding comically surreal scenes of appropriately frantic or settled mood, generally featuring a diverse group of children joined by grotesques that look like refugees from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two. (Poetry/mathematical picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0116-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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