One New Yorker cartoonist gives a younger (of course, Methuselah would be younger) one a chance to show his chops. And the chops are considerable. With an interrogatory text running to just a few words per page, readers are asked in dialogue balloons whether they’d prefer to be a stick or a stone, an elbow or a knee, rain or snow, thunder or lightning, and so on. Bliss (A Fine, Fine School, 2001, etc.) reduces the actors in his painted scenes to a bare minimum—a magic hat, from which a plush rabbit with a wand conjures each alternative, and a boy and a girl wordlessly (until the end) reacting to their choices. Each form, each change of expression, is modeled with both spirit and exquisite skill, in subtle gradations of light and color. The final query, “Would you rather be alone . . . or together?” leaves the children undecided—an open invitation to readers to ponder this life-shaping choice. This thoughtful, though less gleefully silly, alternative to John Burningham’s classic Would You Rather? (1978) showcases an up-and-coming illustrator with plenty of promise. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-029653-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
Quietly contemplative and thoroughly lovely.
A child finds adventure and a change of perspective on a dreary day.
Clouds cover everything in a palette of unending gray, creating a sense of ennui and gloom. A child stands alone, head down, feeling as gray as the day, and decides to ride through town on an old bike. Pops of color throughout the grayscale illustrations go unnoticed—there are yellow leaves scattered about, and the parking lot is filled with bright yellow buses, but this child, who has skin the grayish white of the page, sees only the empty playground, creaky swings, a sad merry-go-round, and lonely seesaws. But look—there’s a narrow winding path just beyond the fence, something to explore. There are things to be noticed, leaves to be crunched, and discoveries to be made. Imagination takes over, along with senses of wonderment and calm, as the child watches a large blue bird fly over the area. The ride home is quite different, joyful and filled with color previously ignored, reaffirming the change in the rider’s outlook. The descriptive, spare text filled with imagery and onomatopoeia is well aligned with well-rendered art highlighting all the colors that brighten the not-so-gray day and allowing readers to see what the protagonist struggles to understand, that “anything can happen…on a gray day.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Quietly contemplative and thoroughly lovely. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781797210896
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches...
Listeners will quickly take up the percussive chorus—“Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy town! Is the trash truck full yet? NO”—as they follow burly Mr. Gilly, the garbage collector, on his rounds from park to pizza parlor and beyond.
Flinging cans and baskets around with ease, Mr. Gilly dances happily through streetscapes depicted with loud colors and large, blocky shapes; after a climactic visit to the dump, he roars home for a sudsy bath.
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches Eve Merriam’s Bam Bam Bam (1995), also illustrated by Yaccarino, for sheer verbal and visual volume. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027139-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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