An uncomplicated look at finding the silver lining during a storm.
A rainy day stimulates a young girl’s imagination in this children’s book.
Charli, crippled by boredom, really wants to go outside to play with her friends. Unfortunately, the weather isn’t cooperating—it’s raining cats and dogs out there: “The wind howled and the leaves swirled like ballerinas in the air.” Her parents, buried in their own tasks, barely notice the rain, but Charli is praying for it to end. After she drags herself back to her bedroom to sulk, she notices a bit of color inside her toy box. It’s a feather, which is attached to a black-and-white striped hat, a gift from her grandmother. As Charli begins to dress herself in items from her toy box (including the hat, a pair of gardening gloves, her mother’s wedding shoes, and an old lace blouse), she has an idea to throw herself an indoor tea party. As she goes about setting up her afternoon tea, her parents silently watch the hullabaloo. Finally, Charli’s mother and father bring milk and cookies to join Charli in her adventure. Soon, all three forget about the rain. Johnson’s (Charli’s Fantastic Day at the Park, 2014) book features a very real childhood problem: what is there to do on a rainy day? Charli finds something to do fairly quickly—so quickly, in fact, that the story somewhat falls flat. She moves from being disillusioned to being delighted in just a few sentences. More deliberate pacing would have lengthened the tale and drawn readers in. The book, as reviewed, also lacks illustrations, and children’s literature, particularly of this length, needs drawings to engage readers and make it a book that the whole family (or, at least, kids of all ages) can enjoy. Still, the prose itself is fairly simple and will keep the attention of the youngest readers, and the littlest ones will definitely ask for the book at bedtime. This second book in the series sets the stage for many more Charli adventures to come.
An uncomplicated look at finding the silver lining during a storm.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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