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
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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
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