As a drowsy little boy puts his toy animals into their box, he asks his sleepy dad (lying on the floor beside him) how they go to sleep. Dad replies in repetitive, soporific quatrains (``A pig curls up with her family or friends/Where one pig starts, another pig ends/And that's how a pig goes to sleep—Oink, oink./That's how a pig goes to sleep''). The book ends with the child snuggling into his own bed. In Wijngaard's lovely, luminous art, the relaxed poses of man and boy are wonderfully authentic. Meanwhile, the exquisitely portrayed animals are added, one by one, to a pleasant farmyard, depicted from several imaginatively chosen points of view (including the child's window), all nicely summed up in the endpapers' broader vistas of the farm at sundown and by moonlight. A captivating bedtime book, wrought with unusual thought and care. (Picture book. 2-6)
Pub Date: May 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-8037-1096-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1992
Through quick thinking and personal sacrifice, a wise old Japanese farmer saves the people of his village from a devastating tsunami in this simple yet striking story based on Lafcadio Hearn’s “A Living God.” Ojiisan lives in a cottage on a mountain overlooking the village and sea. One day, villagers gather to celebrate the rice harvest, but Ojiisan stays home thinking “something does not feel right.” When the earth quakes and the sea darkens and runs away from the land, Ojiisan realizes a tsunami approaches. Fearing the oblivious villagers will be swept away, Ojiisan torches his rice fields to attract attention, and they respond, barely escaping the monster wave. Rendered in gouache, pastel and collage, Young’s illustrations cleverly combine natural textures, bold colors and abstract shapes to convey compelling images of chaos and disaster as the rice fields burn and the wave rushes in. In one literally breathtaking double-page spread, an enormous wall of water engulfs the teeny seacoast village. A visually powerful and dramatic tribute to one man’s willingness to sacrifice everything for others. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25006-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
Momo longed to carry the blue umbrella and wear the bright red rubber boots she had been given on her third birthday. But day after day Indian summer continued. Momo tried to tell mother she needed to carry the umbrella to nursery school because the sunshine bothered her eyes. But Mother didn't let her use the umbrella then or when she said the wind bothered her. At last, though, rain fell on the city pavements and Momo carried her umbrella and wore her red boots to school. One feels the urgency of Momo's wish. The pictures are full of the city's moods and the child's joy in a rainy day.
Pub Date: March 1, 1958
ISBN: 978-0-14-050240-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1958
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