A celebration of growing and eating that is just in time for spring planting.
Berkes’ latest is a departure from many children’s gardening books, combining rhyming verses with recipes celebrating the garden’s bounty.
Rectos present readers with a rhyming challenge to name what is growing, providing textual clues as well as gorgeously detailed and realistic illustrations, which often feature the flowers, insect pollinators and at least the beginnings of the fruit or vegetable. “It grows on a vine with skin that is green. / It’s sliced in a salad; it’s long and it’s lean. / But sometimes it’s shorter with soft little prickles / And placed in a jar for real tasty pickles.” (Deathless poetry this is not.) Versos show close-ups of a child enjoying or preparing a dish featuring that fruit/vegetable, the recipe at the bottom of the page—sweet-and-sour cucumber salad in this case. From the popular ants on a log to the more daring French onion soup, breakfast-y carrot muffins to a dessert of blueberry pie, young chefs are likely to get a wide introduction to both the products of the garden and the culinary arts. The recipes include thumbnail pictures next to the ingredients, and the steps are well-written. Two recipes specify that children should ask for adult help, and closing notes reinforce this, but there is no prominent, introductory note to underscore cooking safety. While the children are sometimes oddly proportioned, they do represent a nice mix of races and cultural backgrounds.
A celebration of growing and eating that is just in time for spring planting. (facts about the featured foods, how seeds start, what plants need, plant parts, glossary of cooking terms, list of garden songs, books and websites) (Informational picture book/recipe book. 3-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58469-189-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dawn Publications
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite.
Humpty Dumpty, classically portrayed as an egg, recounts what happened after he fell off the wall in Santat’s latest.
An avid ornithophile, Humpty had loved being atop a high wall to be close to the birds, but after his fall and reassembly by the king’s men, high places—even his lofted bed—become intolerable. As he puts it, “There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” Although fear bars Humpty from many of his passions, it is the birds he misses the most, and he painstakingly builds (after several papercut-punctuated attempts) a beautiful paper plane to fly among them. But when the plane lands on the very wall Humpty has so doggedly been avoiding, he faces the choice of continuing to follow his fear or to break free of it, which he does, going from cracked egg to powerful flight in a sequence of stunning spreads. Santat applies his considerable talent for intertwining visual and textual, whimsy and gravity to his consideration of trauma and the oft-overlooked importance of self-determined recovery. While this newest addition to Santat’s successes will inevitably (and deservedly) be lauded, younger readers may not notice the de-emphasis of an equally important part of recovery: that it is not compulsory—it is OK not to be OK.
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-682-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This should send Dark Knight fans flying to the Batcave—or the bedroom.
Holy bedtime, Batman!
In a sleepy-looking neighborhood under a dusky cerulean sky, a young, brown-haired, white boy goes through the motions of getting ready for bed: he brushes his teeth, takes a bath, picks up his toys, and feeds his fish. In a parallel visual narrative, beckoned by the cat's-eye–yellow bat-signal, Batman keeps Gotham safe for another night by catching crooks, locking them away, and avenging those who have been wronged. Though the two characters are quite different, through a carefully flexible narrative, Dahl and Beavers weave a convincing tale of just how similar they might be. “It’s time to take care of business” describes the child’s trip to the potty and Batman’s dive down a manhole equally well, for instance. Beavers' art is visually striking and vibrantly hued, perfect for keeping young eyes glued to each page. Dahl's economical text is cadenced with a gentle lilt, just right for a bedtime read-aloud. Young fans of the caped crusader will delight in spying their favorite characters. In the already-overstuffed bedtime-book market, this is certainly a niche read, but it hits its mark well, delivering fun without darkness. A “bedtime checklist” at the end aptly includes “story time.”
This should send Dark Knight fans flying to the Batcave—or the bedroom. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62370-732-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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