Early in August of 1907 newlywed mice Abel and Amanda are enjoying a genteel picnic when "it" is so inconsiderate as to storm. Abel, who leaves their shelter to retrieve his wife's blown-away scarf, doesn't return for a year, as he is swept off to an uninhabited island where, for the first time in his life, survival requires hard work and straggle. Though preoccupied at first with efforts to escape, Abel eventually settles in on the island: rediscovering his teeth as a primitive tool (but, disarmingly, using his pen knife to escape an owl's homy clutches), making clay statues of his loved ones, holing up in a hollow log during the wretched winter, passing better times with a large book he finds on the shore (though, by spring, he's glad to finish it because "what was happening around him was a lot more exciting"), and visiting for a while with a passing frog of abstracted mentality and crude ways which both impress and disgust the wellbred mouse. It is the frog who suggests that in his statues Abel has "found your vocation"—a remark that nicely focuses the trying experience's value for Abel. Steig, almost insidiously, wins you at once to this pampered, untried mouse, and then you grow along with him as he makes himself fit for the world.
Pub Date: June 4, 1976
ISBN: 0374300100
Page Count: -
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1976
Yes, the Pigeon has to go to school, and so do readers, and this book will surely ease the way.
All the typical worries and excuses kids have about school are filtered through Willems’ hysterical, bus-loving Pigeon.
Told mostly in speech balloons, the bird’s monologue will have kids (and their caregivers) in stitches at Pigeon’s excuses. From already knowing everything (except whatever question readers choose to provide in response to “Go ahead—ask me a question. / Any question!”) to fearing learning too much (“My head might pop off”), Pigeon’s imagination has run wild. Readers familiar with Pigeon will recognize the muted, matte backgrounds that show off the bird’s shenanigans so well. As in previous outings, Willems varies the size of the pigeon on the page to help communicate emotion, the bird teeny small on the double-page spread that illustrates the confession that “I’m… / scared.” And Pigeon’s eight-box rant about all the perils of school (“The unknown stresses me out, dude”) is marvelously followed by the realization (complete with lightbulb thought bubble) that school is the place for students to practice, with experts, all those skills they don’t yet have. But it is the ending that is so Willems, so Pigeon, and so perfect. Pigeon’s last question is “Well, HOW am I supposed to get there, anyway!?!” Readers will readily guess both the answer and Pigeon’s reaction.
Yes, the Pigeon has to go to school, and so do readers, and this book will surely ease the way. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-368-04645-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wonderful, indeed
A love song to baby with delightful illustrations to boot.
Sweet but not saccharine and singsong but not forced, Martin’s text is one that will invite rereadings as it affirms parental wishes for children while admirably keeping child readers at its heart. The lines that read “This is the first time / There’s ever been you, / So I wonder what wonderful things / You will do” capture the essence of the picture book and are accompanied by a diverse group of babies and toddlers clad in downright adorable outfits. Other spreads include older kids, too, and pictures expand on the open text to visually interpret the myriad possibilities and hopes for the depicted children. For example, a spread reading “Will you learn how to fly / To find the best view?” shows a bespectacled, school-aged girl on a swing soaring through an empty white background. This is just one spread in which Martin’s fearless embrace of the white of the page serves her well. Throughout the book, she maintains a keen balance of layout choices, and surprising details—zebras on the wallpaper behind a father cradling his child, a rock-’n’-roll band of mice paralleling the children’s own band called “The Missing Teeth”—add visual interest and gentle humor. An ideal title for the baby-shower gift bag and for any nursery bookshelf or lap-sit storytime.
Wonderful, indeed . (Picture book. 1-4)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37671-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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