Pass on this porky paean to friendship; stick with Piggie with a side of Elephant
Into the crowded field of porcine protagonists comes Piggy, a friendless pig who loves to read.
Piggy has been too busy reading all his life to make real friends. When he’s down to his last book, he decides to save it. Then he grabs the first toy he comes upon—a kite—and heads out to fly it. He crashes his kite, but he sees a cat sitting on a swing, nose in a book. He decides to make her his friend. First he tries to get her attention with giant soap bubbles and gets literally carried away in a bubble. Then he tries flying his airplane overhead, trailing a friendly banner; she doesn’t notice. However inventive he gets, the cat continues to read. Then Piggy gets an idea: friends in his books share what they love with each other. He gives the cat, Kate, his last book. She’s overjoyed to get it, but she needs glasses like Piggy’s to read it—happily, he’s got a pair. (At this point readers will wonder how she was reading the book that so fascinated her in the preceding pages.) Entrepreneur and digital artist Lai’s traditional publishing debut has great intentions but not a lot of personality. Piggy trots well-tread ground in the digitally finished watercolor-and-pencil illustrations, which are bright but spare and uninteresting. Rather than a developed character, he resembles an emoji given a bland and illogical tale to inhabit.
Pass on this porky paean to friendship; stick with Piggie with a side of Elephant . (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68119-065-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A disappointing follow-up.
Inventor Izzy Gizmo is back in this sequel to her eponymous debut (2017).
While busily inventing one day, Izzy receives an invitation from the Genius Guild to their annual convention. Though Izzy’s “inventions…don’t always work,” Grandpa (apparently her sole caregiver) encourages her to go. The next day they undertake a long journey “over fields, hills, and waves” and “mile after mile” to isolated Technoff Isle. There, Izzy finds she must compete against four other kids to create the most impressive machine. The colorful, detail-rich illustrations chronicle how poor Izzy is thwarted at every turn by Abi von Lavish, a Veruca Salt–esque character who takes all the supplies for herself. But when Abi abandons her project, Izzy salvages the pieces and decides to take Grandpa’s advice to create a machine that “can really be put to good use.” A frustrated Izzy’s impatience with a friend almost foils her chance at the prize, but all’s well that ends well. There’s much to like: Brown-skinned inventor girl Izzy is an appealing character, it’s great to see a nurturing brown-skinned male caregiver, the idea of an “Invention Convention” is fun, and a sustainable-energy invention is laudable. However, these elements don’t make up for rhymes that often feel forced and a lackluster story.
A disappointing follow-up. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68263-164-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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