Gorgeous images and text chronicle joyful childhood experiences—a future classic.
Linked stories about the planting and multigenerational use of one tree unfold in rhythmic verse.
Before children reach for the branches and climb a tree, Nell, a young Black child, holds a seed. Before awestruck children find a nest filled with eggs and watch them hatch, Nell plants the seed. Before children race from the house to the tree, before a child finds a perfect spot for reading under the tree, before sacks of pecans are collected and sweet pies are baked, Nell nurtures the seedling with sunlight and water, then plants the tree. Playful, lovely text alternates between quickly flowing verses on spreads with the children at their grandmother’s home and slower, methodical verses accompanying images of a young Nell planting the tree. As Nell grows from a young mother to a grandmother, with the same white house in the background, the tree also grows and grows until it shelters several generations of Nell’s family. Readers will delight in watching as time goes back and forth, showing connections between past and present in nature and in the family. Pen-and-ink, gouache, and collage illustrations in a muted, nature-inspired palette give a slightly old-fashioned, atmospheric feel to this rich portrayal of an African American family rooted to the land. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Gorgeous images and text chronicle joyful childhood experiences—a future classic. (author’s and illustrator’s notes) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-286577-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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PERSPECTIVES
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators.
Existing artwork from an artistic giant inspires a fairy-tale reimagination by a master of the horror genre.
In King’s interpretation of a classic Brothers Grimm story, which accompanies set and costume designs that the late Sendak created for a 1997 production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, siblings Hansel and Gretel survive abandonment in the woods and an evil witch’s plot to gobble them up before finding their “happily ever after” alongside their father. Prose with the reassuring cadence of an old-timey tale, paired with Sendak’s instantly recognizable artwork, will lull readers before capitalizing on these creators’ knack for injecting darkness into seemingly safe spaces. Gaping faces loom in crevices of rocks and trees, and a gloomy palette of muted greens and ocher amplify the story’s foreboding tone, while King never sugarcoats the peach-skinned children’s peril. Branches with “clutching fingers” hide “the awful enchanted house” of a “child-stealing witch,” all portrayed in an eclectic mix of spot and full-bleed images. Featuring insults that might strike some as harsh (“idiot,” “fool”), the lengthy, dense text may try young readers’ patience, and the often overwhelmingly ominous mood feels more pitched to adults—particularly those familiar with King and Sendak—but an introduction acknowledges grandparents as a likely audience, and nostalgia may prompt leniency over an occasional disconnect between words and art.
Menacing and most likely to appeal to established fans of its co-creators. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9780062644695
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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