Willems’s third Cat the Cat book might be the best one yet. Playing on children’s fondness for making animal sounds, Cat the Cat asks Hound the Hound, Chick the Chick and Cow the Cow what their respective sounds are. Children will delight in offering up woofs, peeps and mooos in response and will likely be tickled by Bunny the Bunny’s baffled expression when asked for his sound. What does a bunny say, after all? The restrained, satisfying conclusion never answers this question. Instead, with an inspired page turn true to the author’s genius for pacing, the recto page reads, “Sounds like…” leading to the next page opening’s resolution, “somebody needs a hug!” A group hug illustrates this text, and then a wordless picture on the copyright page shows all of the characters sitting down to a picnic of milk, dog biscuits, tea and fruit. Vibrantly colored digital art delivers the clean, animation-like style that fans expect while packing a lot of narrative and expressive punch. This book is the cat’s meow. (Picture book/early reader. 0-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-172844-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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