Catastrophically undermines its own message.
Artwork has paranormal staying power.
Raven, a peach-skinned girl with curly red hair, sees masterpieces in an art museum and sets out to create some herself. It’s harder than she thinks, and although she works diligently, she finds the results “ugly.” She gathers up the so-called “doodles” and stuffs them under the bed. But just like the cat in the old folk song, the papers come back. Not a wardrobe nor the attic nor even the recycling center can hold them; they return onto her mirror, into her bed, and even—eek!—as part of “a brand-new box of drawing pads made from 100 percent recycled paper.” Three visual tones—Raven’s art, styled like a child’s black-and-white pencil drawings; Raven’s huge, round, uber-glossy cartoon eyes; and ominously dark backgrounds that turn dystopically yellow at the recycling center—complement but also jar against one another, parallel to the way the drawings’ reappearances unsettle Raven. When Raven finally takes her “hideous. Miserable-looking. Mess-ups” and works on them again until they’re “perfected” into her “very own gallery of masterpieces,” the delicious spookiness vanishes into a boring moral. Moreover, the text’s consistent and incorrect use of the term “doodle” is not only inaccurate—doodles are casual or absentminded, whereas Raven tries hard, even at the beginning—it belittles Raven’s deliberate artwork. Even more importantly, it dismisses young readers’ deliberate artwork too.
Catastrophically undermines its own message. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-45626-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
A witty year-round ghost tale that delivers a wonderfully unconventional conclusion.
A headstrong young girl finds herself in a haunted house standoff.
Aggie’s excitement about living independently quickly dissolves when she discovers that her lovely new cottage in the rainy woods comes with an unwelcome, shape-shifting, ghostly roommate. Determined to make it work, the light-skinned, short-haired Aggie establishes house rules for the ghost—“no haunting after dark,” “no stealing my socks,” “no more eating all the cheese”—but her spectral companion proves resistant to regulation. The conflict escalates to a high-stakes tic-tac-toe match, where the winner gets the house. Forsythe’s signature watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations masterfully supply both emotional depth and charm to the characters and setting. In a particularly mesmerizing double-page spread, a supernatural vortex of swirling, eye-studded ghostly forms draw the gaze toward an opening where a small, determined Aggie and her equally resolute opponent face off. Glowing pinks juxtaposed with deep indigos heighten the dramatic atmosphere. The delightfully wry ghost’s ever-changing forms and expressions create a humorous visual journey that will have readers hurrying to discover each new, surprising incarnation. Though the narrative occasionally feels assembled to showcase striking artwork over story flow—a minor issue that likely won’t trouble Forsythe fans—the refreshingly imperfect resolution offers young readers a nuanced ending rarely found in picture books.
A witty year-round ghost tale that delivers a wonderfully unconventional conclusion. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2025
ISBN: 9781534478206
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
A rollicking tale of rivalry.
Sweet Street had just one baker, Monsieur Oliphant, until two new confectionists move in, bringing a sugar rush of competition and customers.
First comes “Cookie Concocter par excellence” Mademoiselle Fee and then a pie maker, who opens “the divine Patisserie Clotilde!” With each new arrival to Sweet Street, rivalries mount and lines of hungry treat lovers lengthen. Children will delight in thinking about an abundance of gingerbread cookies, teetering, towering cakes, and blackbird pies. Wonderfully eccentric line-and-watercolor illustrations (with whites and marbled pastels like frosting) appeal too. Fine linework lends specificity to an off-kilter world in which buildings tilt at wacky angles and odd-looking (exclusively pale) people walk about, their pantaloons, ruffles, long torsos, and twiglike arms, legs, and fingers distinguishing them as wonderfully idiosyncratic. Rotund Monsieur Oliphant’s periwinkle complexion, flapping ears, and elongated nose make him look remarkably like an elephant while the women confectionists appear clownlike, with exaggerated lips, extravagantly lashed eyes, and voluminous clothes. French idioms surface intermittently, adding a certain je ne sais quoi. Embedded rhymes contribute to a bouncing, playful narrative too: “He layered them and cherried them and married people on them.” Tension builds as the cul de sac grows more congested with sweet-makers, competition, frustration, and customers. When the inevitable, fantastically messy food fight occurs, an observant child finds a sweet solution amid the delicious detritus.
A rollicking tale of rivalry. (Picture book. 4-8 )Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-101-91885-2
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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