A book whose theme of opposite personalities being best friends is a welcome, uplifting one but whose illustrations lack...
An elephant and a mouse are best friends even though they have different tastes in just about everything.
Big, an elephant, and Little, a mouse, enjoy a close friendship that includes spending lots of time together, even though they have opposite tastes. Garland’s accessibly simple, rhyming text (set in a somewhat clunky typeface) spells it out in a no-nonsense back-and-forth style: “Big likes up, Little likes down. / Little likes square, Big likes round.” The litany encompasses a truly vast number of points on which Big and Little differ. By the end of the story, Garland reveals that Big and Little, being so different, occasionally have fights, but they always make up because they realize that they “are who they are. No need for a change!” And this message of acceptance of differences is heartening and much needed. Garland’s digitally rendered illustrations, while colorful and lively, are visually discordant. Soft blending within the mouse and the elephant figures is juxtaposed against their sharp outline edges—a visually jarring look. Impressionistic backgrounds and foregrounds, too, are interspersed with sharp-edged objects as well as photorealistic ones. The overall impression is one of too many digital effects that don’t harmonize well.
A book whose theme of opposite personalities being best friends is a welcome, uplifting one but whose illustrations lack visual coherence. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-87097-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.
A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book.
The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept—shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665954761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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