A smart and whimsical tale with characters savoring tea and elegant watercolors complementing the verses.
A variety of children, birds, and other creatures cavorts in this debut rhyming picture book.
Listed for ages 3 and up, this volume offers enough magic to charm a bevy of curious readers. An epigraph from George Harrison, “Show me that I’m everywhere and get me home for tea,” sets the tone of travel, delight, and familiar comforts. As with Alice’s adventures beyond the looking glass, kids and animals populate the story, but rather than being hallucinatory and frightening, the various scenes are wondrous and alluring. Some moments are profound. The very first page shows a little owl peeking out of his hole in a craggy tree, the night sky behind a light blue wash with chinks left white or colored yellow for the stars. The facing text is just a couple of lines: “This is me in here. / Is that you out there?” The effect is humbling, suggesting a mutual inquisitiveness between creature and reader—a most welcoming party invitation. Other guests include a winged dog, a fish with large eyelashes, a white rabbit, several birds, three mice with their own teacups, a dark-haired girl, and Bird Face, who appears in a long red coat, blue top hat, and a pointed beak mask. Accompanying his picture, a quatrain with strong rhymes by Ross fills in the character’s story: “He drinks all kinds of teas. / He feeds his birds with peas. / He built his house from cheese.” A few pages later, a slightly crooked multistory house receives its own portrait, with the Eiffel Tower small but stalwart in the distance. Large green shutters accentuate the windows, and the paired text enumerates the residents of each floor. (Ducks with hats live in the penthouse.) Some of the human characters in Usova’s (Mrs. T’s Kooky Pants, 2014, etc.) distinctive illustrations have faces that are pale on one side and darker on the other. Houses are a prominent visual motif in the images, as readers see a lady’s hat that boasts lit windows, a thatch roof in the distance, a castlelike school, and an intimate mouse house under the snow cherries, cozy with a table—and tea—for two in winter.
A smart and whimsical tale with characters savoring tea and elegant watercolors complementing the verses.Pub Date: July 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9903086-0-7
Page Count: 28
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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