Paints a sweet and colorful story.
Stanley and his friends learn how to mix colors while transforming ordinary cardboard boxes into a vibrant castle.
Bee’s hamster protagonist, Stanley, and his animal friends Sophie, Benjamin, and Little Woo are back in this board book. This time, they are taking white and primary paints and learning how to make secondary colors. Standing in a room full of cardboard boxes, they begin transforming them little by little, and readers will notice a red paw print, orange circles, and green stripes standing out against the brown. The work progresses until all the boxes (and animals) are decorated and cardboard towers assembled. Stanley and his friends are darling, but the way Bee applies his colors is what’s most eye-catching. The boxes look as though they were truly painted by children, a nice detail, and the sight of the animals themselves bedecked in splatters of paint rings true. All of the illustrations appear against a white background, and the text is set in a color block along the bottom of each spread; its color matches the described paint mixture in each spread. Stanley’s Toolbox finds Stanley helping Little Woo fix up his treehouse using everything from a glue gun to a drill. Though neither book does anything radically different, both are written at the right pace and level for little readers, offering illustrations that hit the mark.
Paints a sweet and colorful story. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68263-186-7
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For toddlers unafraid of typical Halloween imagery.
A troop of cats traverse a spooky landscape as they make their way to a party hosted by ghosts.
Each double-page spread shows the felines’ encounters with the likes of an owl, jack-o’-lanterns or a bat. One or two of these creepy meetings may be too abstract for the youngest readers, as the cats hear eerie noises with no discernible source on the page. The text, which consists of one rhyming couplet per scene, mostly scans despite a couple of wobbles: “Five black cats get a bit of a scare / As the flip-flapping wings of a bat fill the air.” The sleek, slightly retro art, likely created using a computer, depicts the cats cavorting at night through a shadowy cityscape, the countryside and a haunted house; they may scare some toddlers and delight others. A brighter color palette would have given the project a friendlier, more universal appeal. Luckily, the well-lit, final party scene provides a playful conclusion.
For toddlers unafraid of typical Halloween imagery. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58925-611-8
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
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