Dressing up and some cross-dressing result in a happy relationship for a girl and a bear.
A long red string becomes the tie that joyously binds.
With much effort, a girl pulls on a long red string, and the results are not what she expected, for at the other end is Hank, a grouchy bear who has now lost his red knit pants. Lucy is an imaginative child and tries very hard to cheer up the bear. She swirls, curls, designs, and dons a series of head ornaments from the red thread but to no avail. Hank “just wanted pants.” Lucy goes back to work and energetically strings a makeshift coverup or two or three for the bear, who nevertheless remains “a bare bear.” Neither is a tutu satisfactory. Finally, Lucy pulls out her knitting needles and creates an oversized sweater for herself and gifts her own black-and-white–striped skirt to a now happy and no longer bare bear. Unfortunately, snipping the yarn that now connects them leads to great unhappiness for Hank, but Lucy is ever resourceful and concocts a perfect solution for the now-good friends. Roeder uses pencils, watercolors, and “lots of digital string” in a palette of red, black, and white to create an imaginative and entertaining tale of crafting and friendship. Lucy is pale-skinned, with a gap-toothed and smiling face adorned with black spiky pigtails.
Dressing up and some cross-dressing result in a happy relationship for a girl and a bear. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3049-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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
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