For patient readers, a glowing and magical poetic celebration of hope.
Macfarlane, known for his adult works on science and nature, offers a meditation on finding light during life’s darkest moments.
Written in richly textured verse, the narrative begins in December’s bleakest hour, when “all hope is downwards-flowing,” and follows one child’s quest to gather light from various sources—“stream’s bright gleam,” “rowan’s berry,” and “snowdrift’s shine.” The language pulses with musicality and rich sound patterns, creating an incantatory quality that elevates the simple premise into something mythic. The child stumbles and falls (“PLUNGE! And plummet!”) but ultimately discovers a meadow alive with fireflies—“fallen constellations” that transform darkness into dancing light. Hawker’s extraordinary black-and-white etchings render each scene with meticulous detail, featuring parallel lines and crosshatching with varied line weights that create dramatic effects even without color. The monochromatic palette paradoxically makes the concept of light more powerful, with generous white spaces and careful shading suggesting radiance breaking through shadow. The child, with skin the white of the page, moves through these landscapes, dwarfed by towering trees and vast skies that suggest both vulnerability and the magnitude of natural wonder. The sophisticated vocabulary and complex metaphors will challenge younger readers, but the message about resilience and the power of seeking beauty in darkness will both resonate across ages. Unlike typical picture books, this feels more like illustrated poetry, demanding slower, more contemplative reading that rewards multiple encounters.
For patient readers, a glowing and magical poetic celebration of hope. (Picture book. 7-12)Pub Date: tomorrow
ISBN: 9781917366175
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Magic Cat
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two.
Rollicking verses on “numerous” topics.
Returning to the theme of her Mathematickles! (2003), illustrated by Steven Salerno, Franco gathers mostly new ruminations with references to numbers or arithmetical operations. “Do numerals get out of sorts? / Do fractions get along? / Do equal signs complain and gripe / when kids get problems wrong?” Along with universal complaints, such as why 16 dirty socks go into a washing machine but only 12 clean ones come out or why there are “three months of summer / but nine months of school!" (“It must have been grown-ups / who made up / that rule!”), the poet offers a series of numerical palindromes, a phone number guessing game, a two-voice poem for performative sorts, and, to round off the set, a cozy catalog of countable routines: “It’s knowing when night falls / and darkens my bedroom, / my pup sleeps just two feet from me. / That watching the stars flicker / in the velvety sky / is my glimpse of infinity!” Tey takes each entry and runs with it, adding comically surreal scenes of appropriately frantic or settled mood, generally featuring a diverse group of children joined by grotesques that look like refugees from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two. (Poetry/mathematical picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0116-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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