A sweetly imaginative story about friendship whose message will linger.
Turnbull’s debut plumbs the depths of a friendship between a confident Sea Tiger and a quiet merboy.
On the opening page, a stream of little fish swims into the wide maw of the Sea Tiger, standing on an ocean rock like the Lion King. Narrating this tale in a larger-than-life voice, its sentences command attention. “I am Oscar’s best friend. We do everything together. / Where I lead, Oscar follows.” The merboy, a diminutive creature with soft eyes, is entranced by his giant striped friend. The two begin a magical adventure through the shadowy seas. Swinging on a clamshell trapeze and riding a sea-horse carousel, anything is possible for these creatures. On page after page, the illustrations capture the essence of friendship. With a subtle palette of hazy greens and blues, Turnbull creates a haunting underworld of turtles, octopuses, jellyfish, and shells. The architectural use of black space shines a spotlight on the pair, with energy on some pages and quietness on others. Colored pencils capture the movement of the waters with the tiny, swaying tufts of the tiger’s pelt. With a twist near the end, readers are encouraged to consider love through separation.
A sweetly imaginative story about friendship whose message will linger. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7986-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school...
The familiar theme of the challenges facing a new kid in town is given an original treatment by photographer Border in this book of photos of three-dimensional objects in a simple modeled landscape.
Peanut Butter is represented by a slice of white bread spread with the popular condiment. The other characters in the story—a hamburger with a pair of hot dogs in tow, a bowl of alphabet soup, a meatball jumping a rope of spaghetti, a carton of French fries and a pink cupcake—are represented by skillfully crafted models of these foods, anthropomorphized using simple wire construction. Rejected by each character in turn in his search for playmates, Peanut Butter discovers in the end that Jelly is his true match (not Cupcake, as the title suggests), perhaps because she is the only one who looks like him, being a slice of white bread spread with jelly. The friendly foods end up happily playing soccer together. Some parents may have trouble with the unabashedly happy depiction of carbs and American junk food (no carrots or celery sticks in this landscape), and others may find themselves troubled by the implication that friendship across difference is impossible.
Still, preschoolers will likely savor this mouthwatering treatment of a subject that looms large in many early school experiences. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16773-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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
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