Visually appealing and wryly amusing.
A tale of best friends, one a human child and one a very anthropomorphized boar named Buddy.
The unnamed boy and the boar meet in kindergarten, and the young human immediately complains: “He’s annoying when he can’t keep up.” The strong, expressive gouache paintings with an unusual palette of blue, brown and orange have a hip, contemporary look. They depict the light-skinned redhead and the brown boar racing on scooters and in the swimming pool. The next double-page spread shows the two reaching out for the same piece of food with their chopsticks, and the text reads contradictorily: “He’s also annoying when he’s faster than me!” The two go through the fights that any two boys have, over possessions, fishing competitions, games, and even who can pee farther. Occasional graphic sequences advance the story clearly, mixing with full-page illustrations and double-page spreads. Some drama enters when Buddy goes on vacation and the boy really misses him. An illustration of Buddy in a beach chair with sunglasses and a cellphone reporting, “The waves here are three stories tall!,” opposite the boy lounging at home, trying to top this story, is very cool. The last pages feature thumbnail black-and-white watercolors of two boys growing older, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. A Simplified Chinese version publishes simultaneously, featuring simplified characters and transliterated text directly above the characters. A glossary and a sequence of thumbnail reproductions of the illustrations accompanied by the English text rounds out the package.
Visually appealing and wryly amusing. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-945-29511-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Candied Plums
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message.
Drawing on lyrics from her Mormon children’s hymn of the same title, Pearson explores diversity and acceptance in a more secular context.
Addressing people of varying ages, races, origins, and abilities in forced rhymes that omit the original version’s references to Jesus, various speakers describe how they—unlike “some people”—will “show [their] love for” their fellow humans. “If you don’t talk as most people do / some people talk and laugh at you,” a child tells a tongue-tied classmate. “But I won’t! / I won’t! / I’ll talk with you / and giggle too. / That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Unfortunately, many speakers’ actions feel vague and rather patronizing even as they aim to include and reassure. “I know you bring such interesting things,” a wheelchair user says, welcoming a family “born far, far away” who arrives at the airport; the adults wear Islamic clothing. As pink- and brown-skinned worshipers join a solitary brown-skinned person who somehow “[doesn’t] pray as some people pray” on a church pew, a smiling, pink-skinned worshiper’s declaration that “we’re all, I see, one family” raises echoes of the problematic assertion, “I don’t see color.” The speakers’ exclamations of “But I won’t!” after noting others’ prejudiced behavior reads more as self-congratulation than promise of inclusion. Sanders’ geometric, doll-like human figures are cheery but stiff, and the text’s bold, uppercase typeface switches jarringly to cursive for the refrain, “That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Characters’ complexions include paper-white, yellow, pink, and brown.
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4236-5395-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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