A joyous celebration of the sea as seen through the eyes of a small child. Hubbell (Bouncing Time, 2000, etc.) re-creates the splendor of a day spent capering among the waves as a young child embarks upon a trip to the beach with great relish. Sprightly rhymes and a singsong rhythm combine to form a spirited salute to the sea. Hubbell touches upon all the nifty fun a youngster can have at the shore: silly seaweed hair, digging in the sand, and the unexpected pleasure of a new playmate. She even manages to make sand inside a swimsuit sound like a treat. “Sand in our belly buttons. / Sand in our pants. / We jump in the water / And dance, dance, dance.” Ernst’s pastel illustrations are in complete harmony with the tale. She deftly captures the bewitching quality of carefree beach days that adults so fondly remember and children eagerly anticipate. Inserted within several of the full-bleed spreads are smaller snapshot-styled illustrations that highlight the peaks of the child’s day: meeting her new friend, snacking on a beach towel, etc. The simply rendered drawings, gently colored in marine hues, perfectly convey the absolute bliss a day at the shore can invoke. With a lively, toe-tapping pace and sparkling pictures, this spirited romp transports readers to a day of sun and fun. (Picture book. 2-8)
Pub Date: June 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17378-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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