A light read that will make bedtime playful—and perhaps more alluring—for young readers.
Even before the title page, the book presents readers with a challenge: “DON’T BLINK!”
The narrator—personified as a bigheaded gray owl—explains the challenge at the very beginning of this picture book: if (child) readers can avoid getting to the end of the book, then they can avoid bedtime. There is, unfortunately, one caveat. Each time readers blink, they have to turn the page. The narrator of this interactive picture book comes up with several plans to help readers avoid blinking and, consequently, turning the page. These suggestions range from parsing optical illusions and dizzying spirals to staring “at the person next to you” and squinting. It is ironic that each new suggestion occurs on a new page, steadily leading readers toward the end of the picture book. In one particularly clever moment, a flurry of blinks takes readers from Page 23 to Page 46 in one turn. As the implied readers get sleepier and sleepier, the owl narrator subtly modifies the narrative by suggesting that readers first try shutting one eye, then both eyes—so long as they don’t fall asleep!—in order to avoid turning the page. Rosenthal and Roberts’ innovative picture book, with its purportedly helpful text and solid images in mostly black, white, and gray, gently prepares young readers to sleep even as it seemingly gives children the option of staying awake.
A light read that will make bedtime playful—and perhaps more alluring—for young readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-385-39187-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Pedestrian.
Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.
Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up.
In Murray’s children’s debut, when a gingerbread man made by schoolchildren gets left behind at recess, he decides he has to find his class: “I’ll run and I’ll run, / As fast as I can. / I can catch them! I’m their / Gingerbread Man!”
And so begins his rollicking rhyming adventure as he runs, limps, slides and skips his way through the school, guided on his way by the friendly teachers he meets. Flattened by a volleyball near the gym, he gets his broken toe fixed by the kindly nurse and then slides down the railing into the art teacher’s lunch. Then it’s off to the principal’s office, where he takes a spin in her chair before she arrives. “The children you mentioned just left you to cool. / They’re hanging these posters of you through the school.” The principal takes him back to the classroom, where the children all welcome him back. The book’s comic-book layout suits the elementary-school tour that this is, while Lowery’s cartoon artwork fits the folktale theme. Created with pencil, screen printing and digital color, the simple illustrations give preschoolers a taste of what school will be like. While the Gingerbread Man is wonderfully expressive, though, the rather cookie-cutter teachers could use a little more life.
Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25052-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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