Mitton’s modest, if mildly agreeable, contribution to the barnyard-hoedown genre opens with a bad case of malaise on Farmer Joe’s spread. But readers will know something’s cooking, even before Farmer Joe breaks out his guitar, because Parker-Rees’s palette comprises the same colors associated with the stuff that gets piped onto birthday cakes, and the barnyard animals, who strike poses of sophisticated ennui, clearly know a good time when it bites them on the knee. Out come the instruments in cumulative fashion, each inspired by the one before, and the farm gets back in operation, for music shows the way to happiness and contentment. The basic rhythm has swing—“The crops like the music. Me-oh-my! / Look at them stretching up to the sky”—and plenty of onomatopoeic oomph—“Doom-doom-doo”—though readers may wince at such clunky rhymes as “idea / cheer” and “yee-har / guitar.” Ultimately the book falls short of the panache of other barnyard merriments, such as Martin Waddell’s The Pig in the Pond, illustrated by Jill Barton (1992). (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: April 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-545-12493-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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Dot, the smallest reindeer at the North Pole, is too little to fly with the reindeer team on Christmas Eve, but she helps Santa in a different, unexpected way.
Dot is distressed because she can’t jump and fly like the other, bigger reindeer. Her family members encourage her and help her practice her skills, and her mother tells her, “There’s always next year.” Dot’s elf friend, Oliver, encourages her and spends time playing with her, doing things that Dot can do well, such as building a snowman and chasing their friend Yeti (who looks like a fuzzy, white gumdrop). On Christmas Eve, Santa and the reindeer team take off with their overloaded sleigh. Only Dot notices one small present that’s fallen in the snow, and she successfully leaps into the departing sleigh with the gift. This climactic flying leap into the sleigh is not adequately illustrated, as Dot is shown just starting to leap and then already in the sleigh. A saccharine conclusion notes that being little can sometimes be great and that “having a friend by your side makes anything possible.” The story is pleasant but predictable, with an improbably easy solution to Dot’s problem. Illustrations in a muted palette are similarly pleasant but predictable, with a greeting-card flavor that lacks originality. The elf characters include boys, girls, and adults; all the elves and Santa and Mrs. Claus are white.
A forgettable tale. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-338-15738-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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