Worth’s shrewd economy and sharp observations characterize 23 poems illustrated with Jenkins’s familiar paper collages. Poems like “Kangaroo” are accessible to young children: “The trouble is, / Once born, there’s / No going back—” save for kangaroo babies, “who can / . . . by / A simple somersault / Return headfirst / To the delectable / Pocket of the dark.” Others are disarmingly sophisticated. “Snake” plumbs its subject’s coloration and movement for images: “Mottled / Mosaic / Of pebbles / Tumbled / Smoothly along, / Their slender / Landslide / Filing / Down / The narrow / Channel / Grooved by / The guiding / Head. . . . ” Jenkins’s canny, occasionally self-referential exploitation of paper to portray animal characteristics emerges in whale’s watery batik, elephant’s wrinkled hide and jellyfish’s transparent tentacles. Small trim size (22 centimeters square) renders the gutter somewhat intrusive in a few spreads, and while the image of “Wasp” practically achieves a third dimension, “Snake” seems correspondingly flat. The subject of “Bear” is its eye, “Like a fierce / Furious / Bee,” but Jenkins depicts limpid orbs. Lacking supporting material about the animals, the poet (who died in 1994) or artist, this package doesn’t soar with the poems, but just to have anything available by Worth is worth noting. (Picture book/poetry. 5-12)
Pub Date: April 2, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-374-38057-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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