Rural and suburban readers in northern climes will find much to recognize.
A little girl uses all her senses to detect the signs of spring.
Sophie is a fair-skinned preschooler with a brown pageboy. She lives with her family in a prosperous-looking rural community in what looks like the author’s home state, Vermont. Hill’s accomplished gouache paintings depict leafless trees, snow-covered ground, and a big, comfortable red house. Fanciful touches, such as a parent bluebird impossibly cuddling a baby in a snow-covered birdhouse, will appeal to children even if they are not strictly accurate. Sophie wants to “know how spring is coming.” Her mother tells her to listen for bird song, and one day she hears “the first chirps.” Her dad tells her to feel for soft, muddy ground underfoot; it takes a while, but finally she does. Then she watches for the snow to melt and waits “for the air…to smell like earth and rain.” Each of these transformations takes its time, Hill varying layouts expertly to control the pace. Six vignettes of Sophie playing in the snow on one spread emphasize the passage of time; one full-bleed double-page spread stops it altogether. Together, words and pictures capture the feeling that spring will never come—and then it comes in a rush, trees leafing out in just the last few pages, when Sophie joyfully catches raindrops on her tongue: “this is what spring tastes like!”
Rural and suburban readers in northern climes will find much to recognize. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5134-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Between its autumn and field-trip themes and the fact that not many books start countdowns from 20, this may find its way to...
A class visits the pumpkin patch, giving readers a chance to count down from 20.
At the farm, Farmer Mixenmatch gives them the tour, which includes a petting zoo, an educational area, a corn maze and a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch. Holub’s text cleverly though not always successfully rhymes each child’s name within the line: “ ‘Eighteen kids get on our bus,’ says Russ. / ‘But someone’s late,’ says Kate. / ‘Wait for me!’ calls Kiri.” Pumpkins at the tops of pages contain the numerals that match the text, allowing readers to pair them with the orange-colored, spelled-out numbers. Some of the objects proffered to count are a bit of a stretch—“Guess sixteen things we’ll see,” count 14 cars that arrived at the farm before the bus—but Smith’s artwork keeps things easy to count, except for a challenging page that asks readers to search for 17 orange items (answers are at the bottom, upside down). Strangely, Holub includes one page with nothing to count—a sign marks “15 Pumpkin Street.” Charming, multicultural round-faced characters and lots of detail encourage readers to go back through the book scouring pages for the 16 things the kids guessed they might see. Endpapers featuring a smattering of pumpkin facts round out the text.
Between its autumn and field-trip themes and the fact that not many books start countdowns from 20, this may find its way to many library shelves. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8075-6660-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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