Picture Book Reviews: Arctic Blessings and Parallel Worlds

Kalluk, Celina.  Sweetest Kulu.  Illus. Alexandria Neonakis. Inhabit Junior-Inhabit, 2014.

Visit the publisher’s page for links to order and summary.

I wanted to be blown away by this, a rare story written by and featuring an Inuit-Canadian.  

The child, Kulu—the jacket description says that this an Inuktiut term of endearment rather than a name—is given gifts of wisdom by the creatures of the Arctic Circle on the day that the child is born—the child is never gendered.  With each gift, the child is given a new descriptor, called “sweetest Kulu,” “charming Kulu,” “darling Kulu”, “happy Kulu,” “baby Kulu,” “admired Kulu,” “beautiful and handsome Kulu,” etc.  The text is poetic.  I enjoyed the specificity of the fauna and flora.  The book is beautifully and whimsically illustrated, primarily in a palette of darker earth tones, with the human and the landscape and the animal blending into one another in soft lines. Most of the wisdom shared by the animals was endearing: always believe in yourself, love to give, help anyone who may need help….  However I was thrown out of the story by a line near the end: “Never be lazy, beloved Kulu, because your Land is a place of bright ideas.”  Earlier too the child is to told to “get out of bed as soon as” they wake.  This undercurrent of worth through activity and productivity is a not a feeling that I want to encourage in the next generation.  It’s possible that as I have been working on unlearning this toxic belief of worth through productivity, these lines—that one line in particular—were particularly triggering for me.  

The text ends with the child sleeping, being told to dream as “tomorrow will wait patiently.”

***

Robinson, Christian.  Another.  Atheneum-Simon & Schuster, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-8, Grades PreK-3.

Visit the publisher’s page for links to order, summary, reviews, awards list, trailer, sample pages, activities, and author’s bio.

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I hoped to do.  It’s wordless, and of course, a lot of the story will be what the reader puts into it, but I wanted more direction than I was given.  In this, a portal opens while a young, Black girl sleeps.  Through it comes a cat, identical to hers, but wearing a different color collar.  The portal cat steals a toy mouse from the girl’s cat, and when her cat chases after the intruder, the girl is woken, and she follows the cats through the portal.  Eventually the chase takes them to a space where there are other children.  These children each have a doppelganger like the cat’s.  This is a diverse group, portrayed through different skin tones, and which includes girls in hijabs, another two children in wheelchair, and even two Black children who are rounder than the others.  (It has been pointed out to me that though the characters of picture books have become more racially diverse of late, picture books rarely portray fat characters, most characters having roughly the same body shape across pages and across books in the publishing world. Read one such article by Chelsey Roos.)  The girl’s doppelganger eventually catches her rogue cat and passes the mouse back to our protagonist and her cat, who return to their own world and the girl’s bedroom.  I suppose the magic of the story is supposed to come from the girl’s wonder at the different worlds that she stumbles into, and certainly the story comes through the chase of the cats, but I don’t feel as much wonder at these spaces as I want to do.  Ordinarily I very much like Christian Robinson’s illustration style, but I am not sure that it was the best suited for this story.  I might have felt more wonder had the same story been told by an illustrator who creates more detailed drawings.  Robinson’s are fairly simple color blocks and shapes, and most of these spaces lack any but a white background. Again, though, I think told in concert with a child, this story could be much better than it is as I page through it myself, alone.

***

These reviews are not endorsed by Celina Kalluk, Alexandria Neonakis, Christian Robinson, Inhabit Books, Atheneum Books, or Simon & Schuster. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Picture Book Reviews: Bedtime Stories

All of these books are bedtime stories, meant to settle a little one towards bed, and all of them end with the characters settling in for sleep or sleeping.

Swift, Ginger.  Babies in the Forest: First Lift-a-Flap.  Illus. Olivia Chin Mueller.  Cottage Door, 2017.

Visit this publisher’s page for links to order, summary, and sample pages.

I have talked before here about how much I adore Cottage Door Press.  Why it took so long for some company to realize that board books should have flaps made of the same sturdy cardboard as its pages, I don’t know, but I am glad some publisher has begun to print board books this way.  In this, lifting these flaps reveals more text as well as further illustration.  This is a short stroll through the forest with fox kits Rusty and Ruby.  The foxes meet other North American forest animals, including deer, bears, and beavers.  Afterwards, the foxes go home and go to sleep with a “Good night.”  The illustrations are bright, and the character designs cute.  The setting is autumnal with fallen brown leaves and lots of oranges, reds, yellows, and browns for the illustrations’ palette.  There is an older-style camper in the background of several of these illustrations but no people. In the final pages, it is lit from the inside. I am not really sure what to make of this detail, but I found it interesting that Mueller decided to include it.

Book Reviews: March 2019 Picture Book Roundup: Growing Up and Getting Lucky

St. Patrick’s Day

Pete the Cat: The Great Leprechaun Chase by James Dean. HarperCollins, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

I was impressed by this book; I went in expecting little.  Pete the Cat is trying to capture a leprechaun; he has started a business catching leprechauns for his classmates. Pete expected catching Clover the Leprechaun to be easy, but it is not. The leprechaun taunts Pete in limericks, which is a fun gimmick and fun to read aloud.

I was surprised by how many kids thought that we could actually catch a leprechaun, that I might have leprechauns running about the store, awaiting their traps. I was glad that in this book, the point is made that leprechauns can only be caught on St. Patrick’s Day. It saved me being the one to disappoint them on the Saturday before.

That Pete catches only one leprechaun for his three different customers, that Pete takes more orders without first fulfilling previous orders is not really addressed.

Clover teaches Pete that luck doesn’t come from catching a leprechaun. Having friends, Clover says, is what makes a person lucky. So Pete lets Clover go, and he help his friends prepare for their examinations, recitals, and matches. Hard work and practice, not luck, helps the friends succeed.  They are lucky to have a friend willing to help.  This was a great message and a surprising one to find in a book about leprechauns and St. Patrick’s Day.  What a hidden gem.  This will be one I will probably read every St. Patrick’s Day-themed story time from now on.

*****

 

How to Trap a Leprechaun by Sue Fliess and illustrated by Emma Randall. Sky Pony-Skyhorse, 2017.

This book has only one kind of trap that it suggests setting for a leprechaun who will grant wishes and give you his gold: a cardboard box with gold-painted rocks as a lure, a rainbow slide to mark the gold, and glue on the rocks to keep the leprechaun from escaping the lure. This leprechaun, Liam, tells the kids, a diverse group, not to fret that he escaped but to go enjoy St. Patrick’s Day and to try to catch a leprechaun again next year. The text is told in rhyme, but lacks Pete’s limericks.

***

Ten Lucky Leprechauns by Kathryn Heling and Deborah Hembrook and illustrated by Jay B. Johnson. Cartwheel-Scholastic, 2013. First published 2012. Intended audience: Grades PreK-K.

The book counts up as redheaded male and female leprechauns are added to this group in a forest. The text is extremely formulaic:  One, two, three, etc. leprechauns see or otherwise become aware of a [adjective] “wee elf” who performs some action illustrated on the page that rhymes with his or her assigned number. “Feedle-di-fizz, ‘tis magic, it is! It’s leprechaun number…” TWO, THREE, etc.  I found it too formulaic, and I found the nonsense words awkward, an attempt at… what?  Sounding Irish I suppose but without using a lyric recognizable from any song.  Perhaps this text would work better sung?  The nonsense was maybe too near fiddle-de-dee, used as an expression of dismissal since the late 1700s, and colored my vocalization and sense of the nonsense.

**

Growing Strong and Smart

 

I Will Be Fierce! by Bea Birdsong and illustrated by Nidhi Chanani. Roaring Brook-Macmillan, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 3-6.

I read an advanced reader’s copy of this book.  Much—almost all—of this story is told in the illustrations. The text itself is affirmative, many “I will” statements. The protagonist, a young girl, a woman of color and likely Indian or perhaps Pakistani, sets off to what seems to be a first day of school. (The surnames on the mailboxes in the atrium of her apartment are Phag, Huang, Caimoi, Warren, Jain, Bers, Rao.  Rao and Jain are both of Indian origin according to Behindthename.com, and Phag is a surname most prevalent in Pakistan according to Forebears, and the illustrator is of Indian descent.) The girl imagines herself as an adventurer in a high fantasy, driving back dragons (dogs on the street) with bubbles, walking with giants (older students), and tricking the Guardian of Wisdom (the smiling librarian) into revealing her secrets while her steed is a trusty school bus. She stands up against bullies and makes friends with a rejected girl in glasses.  I also like that at the end of her day, the girl rests. The protagonist seems to live with a grandmother. Her armor is a comfortable-looking, rainbow-striped pullover.  Though a small detail, I like that the protagonist’s hair isn’t perfectly sculpted, strands escaping from the shape.

*****

 

When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree by Jamie L. B. Deenihan and illustrated by Lorraine Rocha. Sterling, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 3+.

I loved this book so much that when I didn’t get the chance to read it for one story time I brought it out for a second weekend. A grandmother in the city brings her granddaughter a lemon tree sapling in a coffee tin as a birthday present. It’s not the high tech toy that the granddaughter wanted, and she at first tries to get rid of the tree, but ultimately, she becomes protective of the growing tree. When the tree produces its first crop, the grandmother returns and helps her granddaughter turn the lemons into lemonade and the lemonade into enough money for the high tech toy that she had originally hoped to receive for her birthday. But the tree has inspired a love of gardening that supersedes her desire for the toy, and she returns from the store with a wagon full of more plants to add to her garden and share with her neighborhood. There are so many wonderful lessons here: about hard work and perseverance and money earned, a practical recipe for lemonade, a love of gardening to engender in a new generation, especially one bound in the concrete of a skyscraper city, how to respond to unwanted gifts, the wisdom of our elders, and that sometimes something you first disliked may become beloved. The lessons and the expressive characters superseded my usual dislike for this type of text, which lists things that a universal “you” should and should not do as in books like Elise Parsley’s stories about Magnolia, the books in the How to Catch series by Adam Wallace, and the series of how-tos by Jean Reagan. Both grandmother and granddaughter are women of color.

*****

Animalphabet by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Sharon King-Chai. Dial-Penguin Random, 2018. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

There is a great deal to love in this book too. First, this is a lift the flap book the flaps of which extend the pages in different ways, at times doubling the page’s size outward or upward or downward.  Sometimes the flaps are large and sometimes they are small.  Simply interacting with the pages was fun and exciting, but the whole book too is a guessing game.  “Who can slither better than a rabbit? A snake! Who can growl better than a snake? A tiger!”  The animals are alphabetically mentioned. There are peep-through holes in many creative shapes in the pages that hint at the following page but rarely at the hidden animal. Often the question itself hints at the upcoming animal, mentioning some act associated with that animal, as snakes are known to slither and tigers are known for their growls. For a primer, this is a very delicate book, but what a wonderfully colorful, wonderfully creative book. I think its silliness, its beauty, and its creativity will shine for older readers too. I hope that they will.

*****

Corduroy by Don Freeman. Penguin, 2014. First published 1968. Intended audience: Ages 0-5.

Here is a true classic. Corduroy the bear has sat on the shelf of the toy store a long while waiting for a child to bring him home. When a mother concerned with the expense when refusing to buy the bear that day for her girl comments that Corduroy doesn’t even look new, that he’s lost a button, Corduroy takes a nighttime quest around the department store to find his missing button. Corduroy is endearing in his innocence of the world. He mistakes an escalator for a mountain. He mistakes the furniture department for a palace. He has never slept in a bed. He has always wanted a home. I wonder how much longer a department store will be a relatable setting for young children. Corduroy makes a ruckus trying to retrieve a button for himself from one of the mattresses. Without having attained a button, his quest a failure, the night watchman returns Corduroy to the shelf, where the next morning he is discovered by the girl from before. Lisa has counted her own money, and she has enough to bring Corduroy home. Lisa likes Corduroy as he is, but she thinks that he will be more comfortable if she replaces his button, which she does herself. She is considerate of his comfort, she knows what she wants, and isn’t afraid to stand up for what she wants, but she respects her mother and is polite to the salesperson. She loves Corduroy through his external flaws. She is independent, purchasing Corduroy when her mother does not, and fixing his overalls herself. The two recognize one another as friends. Lisa and her mother are African American, notable and laudable especially for a book from ‘68.

*****

We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines and illustrated by Julianna Swaney. Thomas Nelson-HarperCollins, 2019.

To read this one out loud, I cut sentences, I cut paragraphs, I cut pages. It was just long. Honestly, it was a chapter book trying to be a picture book. It would have benefited greatly from more editing.  I suspect that Gaines was able to rely a bit on her celebrity to get the book that she wanted instead of the book that this could have been.  I don’t need to know everything that happened in and to and before this garden to read a good story, nor do I need to know all of the science behind healthy gardens to enjoy a story. The family’s father brings home one fern. That fern dies from overwatering. Another fern is acquired. A watering schedule is established. More ferns are acquired. The ferns become a dream for a larger, outdoor space and more plant variety. The garden grows. It is enjoyed. Another child is born. Animals come and destroy the garden. The garden is regrown. There were lots of facts sprinkled into the text, definitions of terms, advice for growing, explanations of the garden ecosystem. The pastel illustrations were soothing though. The lessons of perseverance through adversity were good. Everything just felt overexplained. And too much seemed to happen, too much seemed to want to be said in the span of only 40 pages. The book is told from a plural first person, the kids collectively narrating.

**

You Are My Happy by Hoda Kotb and illustrated by Suzie Mason. HarperCollins, 2019. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

A family of bears (a parent and cub) reflect on the things that made them happy throughout the day as they are settling down for the day: marks of growing and friends and families that they observed and with whom they interact. I could have done without the refrain “that’s what made me happy.” The list rhymes. The story ends with “the one I’m thankful for you is you. You are my happy.” It’s sweet. It’s a nice ritual to establish with a little one, listing the things that made you happy before bed.

***

 

Little Blue Truck’s Springtime by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Jill McElmurry. Houghton Mifflin, 2018. Intended audience: Ages 4+.

This lift the flap, animal primer uses the Little Blue Truck character to introduce readers to farm animals and their offspring. More and more toads (that really look more like frogs to me) gather on the truck, and I made a game of counting the toads on each page. There are nine ducklings and ten piglets to count too and a passel of bunnies. The text is very simple, very short but rhymes. The flaps tend to hide the animals.

***

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Book Reviews: September 2018 Picture Book Roundup: Astronauts, Bees, and Sillier Animals

Astronauts

 

I Am Neil Armstrong by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Chris Eliopoulos. Dial-Penguin Random, 2018. Intended audience: Ages 5-8.

My toddlers at story time are not the target audience for this book. For them is it too long—just too long. I suppose it could be best considered a graphic novel, but it’s really too short for a novel. A graphic novelette? But it’s not a picture book, despite the bright illustrations and round-faced depictions of the protagonists. I personally feel that it talks down to the middle school students that are generally the target audience for graphic novels.  So elementary students?

This biography of Neil Armstrong begins with Armstrong as a child climbing trees and ends with his space mission completed and a plug for the National Air and Space Museum in DC. There are many details about his life and his philosophy. It is intimate in a way that I did not expect. There are though too perhaps extraneous details, which I suppose sometimes add weight to Meltzer’s assertions (not a long checklist but “a 417-step checklist”), but more often added to the length of the story without really deepening my understanding of Armstrong or his mission.

Perhaps because I read so few biographies and don’t know what to expect or to want from them, I was less interested in the intimate details of Armstrong’s life. I don’t find it necessary to know that he was scared of Santa or fell out of a tree or read many books in a year. Any biographies I’ve read, I’ve read (and long ago) to be able to give a report or write a paper—a flaw in me not in the genre or in this book in particular—so I’ve never needed or particularly wanted more than the facts—just the straight up facts. What I read for pleasure—primarily fantasies but even realistic fiction that I read—are more often the span of an event—a significant event—and nonessential personal histories are left off or obliquely referenced if and only if they are effecting the character in the now.

I can tell that Meltzer wanted to include these details to illustrate the natural traits that allowed Armstrong  to succeed in his space mission, but the presentation felt extremely forced; it lacked finesse when compared to the arc of the fictions that I enjoy reading.

I frankly don’t feel qualified to rate this book, but I wanted to discuss it nonetheless because it wasn’t what I was expecting, and it might not be what you’re expecting either.

—

Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed and illustrated by Stasia Burrington. HarperCollins, 2018.  Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

I chose this book because Brad Meltzer’s I Am Neil Armstrong was too long for my usual story time audience, but I wanted to keep to something in theme with the story I had been assigned to read. Plus, it’s the true story of an African American woman achieving her dream, written by Somali woman living in Norway! Mae Jemison’s parents support her dream to see Earth from space. They tell her she’ll have to become an astronaut. But her teacher (a white woman), says that an astronaut is no job for a woman—wouldn’t she rather be a nurse? That’s a good job “for someone like” her. Jemison is heartbroken by her teacher’s pronouncement. But her parents continue to be wonderful and tell her that this time her teacher is wrong; she shouldn’t believe her. So Jemison continues “dreaming, believing, and working hard,” and she becomes an astronaut and waves to her parents from space. There is less about Jemison’s life here and more about following your dream and achieving your dream through hard work and a firm belief. Meltzer focuses on facts; Ahmed on story. Ahmed’s was much better for my young audience.

***

Are You Scared, Darth Vader? by Adam Rex. Lucasfilm-Disney, 2018.  Intended audience: Ages 6-8.

All right. I found this one funny as did the friend who pulled it off the shelves to show it to me. But it’s only funny if you’re already familiar with Darth Vader and the Star Wars films; the text is littered with allusions to quotes and to plot points from the films. I tried it out on some kids who didn’t know Darth Vader. They didn’t find it funny. It’s also funnier if you can imitate Darth Vader’s deep voice, which I can only do poorly. Really, this may even be a story more for adults than for children.

The authorial voice and Darth Vader dialogue throughout this story. The book tries to scare Darth Vader with a werewolf, a ghost, a witch, but he is unimpressed by any of these despite the authorial voice’s assertion that they can bite and hex him. So the authorial voice invites a posse of children in Halloween costumes and without to swarm all over Vader, to pester him with questions, as the authorial voices continues to tease, “Are you scared now, Darth Vader?”

But Vader is not scared so much as annoyed by the posse.

The children decide that he’s no fun, and they leave.

Well, it seems Darth Vader can’t be scared, so it’s time for the book to end.

But Darth Vader will not allow the book to end. He implores the child holding the book not to turn the page, not to close the book.

He admits to his fear, but the book must end, and so he is trapped inside the book, “almost like [he’s] frozen in carbonite—or whatever.”

*** 

Bees

Princesses Save the World by Savannah Guthrie and Allison Oppenheim and illustrated by Eva Byrne. Abrams, 2018.

This is not the story I expected. This is a story about the importance of bees to an agrarian economy and society. Princess Penelope Pineapple receives a distress call from her neighbor across the sea whose bees have all disappeared and whose fruit harvest has suffered because of it. Princess Penelope calls an assembly of princesses from a wealth of fruit-centric nations. Princess Sabrina Strawberry is not alone in her plight. Audrey Apple is having the same problem. She’s a pretty minor character, mentioned once by name then shown as trying to help the other princesses solve the problem, but that the two princesses whose kingdoms are in trouble are both dark-skinned and dark-haired women of color gives the story an unpleasant tinge of white savior complex that this world does not need.

The princesses decide it is their duty to help, and among Princess Penelope’s many other talents, she is a beekeeper; she knows that scents lure bees. She hops into her lab and with whatever perfumes and sweet-smelling treats the princesses happen to have in their luggage creates a perfume. The princesses engineer new hives to give to Princess Sabrina, and with her perfume in hand, Princess Penelope leads the bees across the sea to the Strawberry Kingdom, where the bees settle, and their industry the next year leads to a healthy harvest for the kingdom—celebrated with a tea party by the princesses.

If only solving the problem of the disappearing bees were so easy!

But I continue to like Princess Penelope and her more modern take on being a princess with a wealth of duties and talents not generally assigned feminine or princess-like. I like that she seeks outside help and opinions from other nations when she sees a nation in trouble. That kind of collaborative foreign diplomacy and policy is forward-thinking and positive too.

I appreciate that the authors saw a current environmental problem and wanted to raise awareness among a younger audience about the problem, and that they seek to show young activists taking steps to alleviate a problem.

***

Bee: A Peek-Through Picture Book by Britta Teckentrup. Doubleday-Penguin Random, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 3-7. 

This is not the first of Teckentrup’s books that I’ve read. Her strength I feel is in lyrically romanticizing the ordinary—thus far her subjects have always been also natural. This like Tree is more nonfiction than fiction, depicting the day and job of a worker bee and bees as pollinators. Many animals, including a bee in a peek-hole through each page, hide among the illustrations, making a fun spot-the-critter game as you read through the book. Teckentrup uses lyrical language and specific detail to paint her text. This made for a good side book to Guthrie and co.’s Princesses Save the World. A bit more on level for my youngest listeners and certainly much shorter, there’s less—really no—problem here, certainly no talk of a global crisis, but it seemed a good way to introduce the concept of why bees are so important to an ecosystem.

**** 

New Twists on Old Tales

 

Pig the Fibber by Aaron Blabey. Scholastic, 2018. First published 2015.

I’ve reviewed others (almost all of the others) in the Pig the Pug series. It’s just not a model I love. In this addition to the series, Pig is blaming Trevor to avoid getting into trouble for things that he’s done. Having gotten Trevor out of his way, Pig concocts a scheme to get to the treats on the top shelf of the closet, but along with the treats, a bowling ball falls from the shelf, and Pig is again bandaged and laid up, again he gets his comeuppance for treating Trevor poorly, for behaving poorly. And he’s learnt another lesson—but again not well and not without serious bodily harm all portrayed in a singsong rhythm. Learning not to blame a sibling or bystander, not to scapegoat is a valuable lesson, but I’m still just not sure about this method of teaching; it’s so drastic, and the tone is at such odds with the harm caused to Pig.

***

Corduroy Takes a Bow by Viola Davis, based on characters by Don Freeman. Viking-Penguin Random, 2018.  Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

What a special opportunity I expect this is for Viola Davis! Don Freeman was one of the first picture book illustrators to create a book with African American protagonists, and now fifty years later, Davis, the first African American to win a Tony, and Emmy, and an Oscar, has returned to his characters with a new story. She takes Corduroy and Lisa to the theater—a live stage performance. Both are excited and in Lisa’s attempts to see above a tall man who sits in front of her, she loses track of Corduroy, who too seeks a better seat, ending up in the pit, backstage, and then on stage. The picture book is unfortunately heavy with lessons about the language of the theater, the people behind a production, and those pieces weighed down the story somewhat.

***

Goodnight Goon: A Petrifying Parody by Michael Rex.  G. P. Putnam-Penguin Random, 2008.  Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

This is yet another Goodnight Moon parody, this time with a spooky, B-horror, monster theme. The little goon spends the second half of the book avoiding bed and partying and playing with the creatures that infest his bedroom, perhaps trying to tire everyone out so that his bedroom will be quiet enough to sleep; everyone is sleeping or out of the bedroom when the happy goon is at last in his bed by the last page (“Goodnight monsters everywhere.”)—that’s a fun twist on the story.

***

And Silly Animals

 

The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith and illustrated by Katz Cowley. Scholastic, 2010. First published 2009.  Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

Sometimes British picture books in particular, I’ve found, are just wonderfully weird. This one is wonderfully weird. It resurfaced in America because of a YouTube video of a Scottish grandmother reading the book aloud. The story reads like a camp song, a wonderful camp song where each verse adds another adjective to a long list of to remember, all rhyming, all silly. I remember the days (20 years ago) when Scholastic didn’t believe we would understand “Mum” in a middle grade novel. Now look at them! throwing our picture books readers words like “wonky” and making no changes to the British English “spunky” though it doesn’t seem to mean the same thing as it does in American English; from this picture book in British English it seems to be a synonym for “good looking.” I really enjoyed this. I enjoyed the silliness of the plethora of adjectives attached to this donkey, and I enjoy saying it as fast as I can: “a spunky, hanky-panky, cranky, stinky dinky, lanky, honky-tonky, winky, wonky donkey.” I like the victory of being able to say it all really fast. I guess I’m still a camper at heart. If any Scottish grandmothers out there want to read Evil Weasel and make that something I can find in my country, I’d much appreciate it; I remember really enjoying that one when I read it while staying with a family in Edinburgh.

****

Chomp Goes the Alligator by Matthew Van Fleet. Paula Wiseman-Simon & Schuster, 2018. Intended audience: Ages 2-99.

With lots of interactive elements—touch and feel, a pull-tab to make the alligator chomp up and down, and even a pop-up—this is a counting book and animal and color primer—all set in a swamp, which is not the most oft used of settings for a picture book. On the final pop-up page the animals not featured in the text are labeled in smaller print and the bugs in a bubble of dialogue ask to be counted in a later reading. The page spreads are labeled 1-10 in big text. Every animal miraculously lives though the text’s pretext is the alligator eating them and seems on the last page even to have enjoyed its experience on the alligator thrill ride. The illustrations are of cute, happy critters in pastel colors. There’s a burp to make the kids laugh, and a polite “excuse me” to appease the parents. This book has everything! Educational and fun and unusual.

*****

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Book Reviews: November & December 2017 Picture Book Roundup: Gift-Giving

River Rose and the Magical Lullaby by Kelly Clarkson and illustrated by Laura Hughes. HarperCollins, 2016.  Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

River Rose is so excited to be going to the zoo the next day. Her mother tucks her in and sings her a lullaby. That night, magic balloons show up outside her bedroom window and transport her to the zoo, where she has a party with the animals, none of whom are confined to their compounds. I like that at some point in the night she asks her friend, Joplin the dog, what he wants to do. At the end of the night, when the polar bears tell her that they need sleep, she snuggles up with the bears and sings the lullaby that her mother sang to her to the bears. She ends up back in her bed, glad for her adventure, but glad too to be home.  Was it a dream?  Was it real?  Does she go again to the zoo the next day and is she disappointed when she sees the reality of the zoo in the daylight?  The book doesn’t say.

***

Everything Is Mama by Jimmy Fallon and illustrated by Miguel Ordóñez. Feiwel & Friends-Macmillan, 2017.  Intended audience: Ages 1-3.

Like with Fallon’s first book, there’s not a lot here. In this, presumably mostly maternal animals try to teach their children new words, only to have them reply “mama,” with a reversal at the end with the trite ending “but you are everything to mama” (expect to fit the rhyme, the sentiment is phrased more awkwardly than that). I think very little of it, but I caught a mother reading it to a young child at the store, and the child giggled at every page, so there is an audience for this, and maybe neither my story time toddlers nor I are not it. My audience lately has comprised of children 4 and older.

**

Lessons in Sharing

Clifford Shares by Norman Bridwell. Cartwheel-Scholastic, 2012.

There’s not much to this little board book either, just a few pages and a few sentences in total, but Clifford is a familiar friend. Clifford shares his water. He shares a bench. And then everyone shares with Clifford at a picnic. There’s just not much here to rate. There’s nothing remarkable about this book, really, good or bad. There’s a vague idea of reciprocity: Clifford shares so others share with Clifford, but the book’s real draw is Clifford.

***

The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks by Jan Berenstain and Mike Berenstain. Zonderkidz-Zondervan, 2009.

This was a long story time book, but one of my regulars showed up early, and I promised to read one book—whatever book she picked out. The prose in this book is prettier, more descriptive, the story more fleshed out with detail than what I usually read for story time, which was a nice change.

But this is a problematic book, relying too heavily on whitewashed history and doing little if anything to correct or clarify the narrative.  Papa trades some furniture for a turkey from Farmer Ben—a living turkey. Ben’s named the turkey Squanto after “a Native Bear who helped the Pilgrims plant their corn when they settled in their new home.” I mean, I guess, Ben. Sister Bear doesn’t like the idea of meeting her Thanksgiving dinner while he’s alive. She wants to keep Squanto as a pet. She visits him at the farm as the weather grows colder. To distract Sister from the idea of eating Squanto, Mama Bear proposes a costumed show of the legend of Thanksgiving. “We’ll need feathers for the Native Bears’ headdresses.” No you won’t, Mama Bear. Honey Bear represents Squanto the Native Bear with a full headdress of turkey feathers and speaking broken English: “Me, Squanto!” her only line. Admittedly, Honey Bear is not portrayed as speaking good English, and I suppose the cast is limited to the preexisting characters, but…. “He speaks English! What a miracle!” Miracle it is not, Cousin Fred, though maybe there is some miracle in Squanto finding his way back to his own land if not his own village after all his trials. The whole legend of Thanksgiving as told in this story is the whitewashed imagining that we hear “in school over and over again every November” (or we did when I was in public school; I hope today’s tellings are a little more nuanced, a little more accurate) with no discussion of the horrors visited on Native Americans by the European invaders.

That doesn’t even begin in on the problems of reminding children that our Thanksgiving feast features a once-living bird, and that it might be possible to persuade their parents to skip the bird and to keep the bird as a pet instead because Squanto the Turkey survives, is given a new pen in the Bears’ backyard. Parents should be prepared to answer questions that Sister Bear’s feeling for Squanto might stir.

It’s difficult to avoid religion when discussing the First Thanksgiving, and this book does not, the Bears’ prayer even included in the text.

**

Plush by Louise Myers. Tiny Tales-Whitman, 1949.

A friend bought me this pocket-sized paperback because the pony Plush looks a quite a bit like my own pony. The animals of the farm (all anthropomorphized, though Plush less so than the others) take a pony cart, pulled by Plush, to the Fair to sell their goods and spend the money that they make. There’s an element of an animal sounds primer in the text, with the pony’s hooves clippety-clopping, the hen cackling, the duck quacking, the lamb baaing, and the pig oinking. The friends all buy gifts for Plush with their money. It’s a sweet story of gift-giving, expressing thanks, and retail.

****

Christmas and Wintertime

River Rose and the Magical Christmas by Kelly Clarkson and illustrated by Lucy Fleming. HarperCollins, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

Of the two River Rose books, this one my audience unanimously liked better. Now admittedly, we read this story December 16, just 9 days from Christmas morning, so I’m sure that timing and the already swelling excitement for the holiday tinged their reactions to the story. I’m going to be recommending the other more frequently because it is far less seasonal and far more universal. Not every child is excited for Christmas (not all of them celebrating the holiday), but I think that most children are excited to visit a zoo—particularly a zoo without enclosures and with no supervision but a polar bear mama as is the one in the first River Rose book. In this River Rose sneaks down the stairs to hand-deliver her letter to Santa, but she’s missed him. Instead the magical balloons from the previous book are waiting in her living room. She and Joplin take the balloons to the North Pole where they are greeted by the elves and Mrs. Claus, who plies River Rose with a wealth of sweets, the book becoming a numbers primer. She is near sleep when Santa returns. Santa makes one last trip to bring River Rose home, and she hand-delivers her letter to him—which is not a list of requested gifts, but a simple thank you, which touches Santa. This new illustrator does a good job continuing in the tradition of the previous. I didn’t notice the difference, and don’t think I’d have noted it expect that I write these reviews and am always sure to credit the illustrator too. Fleming’s palette is maybe a little more muted and her lines a little crisper than Hughes’.

***

Outside by Deirdre Gill. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.

Deirde Gill illustrated Trains Don’t Sleep, which I read and loved in October. I went exploring to see what else she had done, and found this story, written and illustrated by Gill. A bored boy leaves the house and explores the snowy outside. His brother won’t join him outside, so he makes himself a friend—an enormous snowman, who comes to life to help him build a castle. And what do castles attract? Dragons of course! This one is thankfully friendly. His brother finally does come out to play, after the boy’s adventure in the snow is done, and together they make one last snowman. Because the brother stays inside staring at screens, he misses his younger brother’s adventures. There’s as much a lesson about leaving screens to play outside as there is a lesson about the wonders of the imagination and the outdoors and free play. These illustrations are everything I hoped for. The colors, the landscapes, the characters are amazing! There’s not a great deal of text, most pages comprising of only a sentence or two. Some have only a sentence fragment, and some have no words at all.

****

A Loud Winter’s Nap by Katy Hudson. Picture Window-Capstone, 2017.  Intended audience: Grades PreK-1.

The friends from Too Many Carrots are back, this time with Turtle as the protagonist. I feel this turtle on a personal level. He doesn’t like winter. He just wants to hibernate through it. But his friends are having fun in the snow and being noisy nearby no matter where he makes his nest and despite his sign. Eventually he accidentally stumbles into some winter fun of his own, not realizing his newest napping spot is a sled primed at the top of the hill. He enjoys racing downhill, and in the end joins his friends on the iced-over pond where his sled stops, skating and drinking hot cocoa and generally enjoying the winter with his friends.

****

Santa’s Magic Key by Eric James. Jabberwocky-Sourcebooks, 2017.

I don’t think that I ever truly believed in Santa Claus, but I did grow up in a house without a chimney, and I wasn’t unaware of the myths surrounding the man. I think I questioned less how Santa would get into our house when we had no fireplace and more how we would communicate in J. K. Rowling’s wizarding world without a fireplace to connect to the Floo Network. How Santa did all that he was supposed to do were more for me questions of filling in gaps in the story than worries about whether or not I would receive any gifts.

The tagline for this book suggests starting a new family tradition—which makes it sound as though Eric James is hoping to appeal to the same audience as participate in the Elf on the Shelf tradition. As far as new holiday traditions go, I’d be far more willing to go along with James’. A) It requires action only one night out the year. B) It does not require me to suggest that an inanimate doll is 1) animate, 2) always watching and judging my child’s behavior and 3) reporting that behavior to a boss who will reward or punish a child based on that behavior. James’ story is less preparation for a police state and more assurance that your house can be visited by Santa despite your house lacking an element seemingly present in every Santa myth.

James’ book is long, but better written, and his illustrations are beautiful, hazily but realistically rendered full-page spreads rather than the cartoonish characters lacking much setting that accompany the Elf on the Shelf.

Despite all this, James is not likely to create the empire that Aebersold, Bell, and Steinwart have because he doesn’t self-publish and he didn’t create a character who can be dressed in different outfits, have pets, and have accessories, and whose pets can have accessories.

***

Olaf’s Night Before Christmas by Jessica Julius and illustrated by Olga T. Mosqueda. Disney, 2015.  Intended audience: Ages 6-8.

Frozen’s Olaf becomes the protagonist of Clement Moore’s The Night Before Christmas, and Julius rewrites Moore’s text for Olaf. Familiar lines of Moore’s are echoed in the new text. Anna and Elsa make guest appearances, Olaf mistakes the “eight tiny reindeer” for “eight little Svens,” and at first he thinks that Santa might be Kristoff. There’s a lot more humor in this new version, the language is more modern and simpler than Moore’s (“His boots were all black and his pants were all red. But where was the rest of him? Where was his head?”). Olaf, a simple snowman not familiar with Christmas traditions, makes a delightful new narrator for this twist on the classic tale. The illustrations are bright with nods to the film in the style and in the details, but plenty of familiar, traditional Christmas details in them to almost erase the fact that this is a Disney product. There’s tradition, there’s extra sweetness, there’s the familiarity of Disney characters.

*****

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Book Reviews: June 2017 Picture Book Roundup

I have to issue an apology to several authors and illustrators that I read in June. Having broken my arm and having been knocked off my game for several months afterward, some of these books, particularly some of these toddler books I just don’t remember well enough to do much justice to the reviews and I’m afraid I’ll have to skip reviewing one in this batch, Eric Hill’s Spot Loves Bedtime. For any that I can reconstruct my impressions from even reading others’ reviews and available previews I will do that. It’s possible that all of these reviews may not be as detailed as they have been for some other months.

Toddler Time

 

Feminist Baby by Loryn Brantz. Hyperion-Disney, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 0-2.

Reading reviews on Goodreads, there is one that I think really hits the nail on the head: With the wealth of board books tackling impossibly complicated concepts, like quantum physics and government, how is it that this is one of the first I’ve seen to openly tackle the misunderstood concept of feminism? Mostly this is a book about liking what you like and not being forced to present oneself in any particular way because of one’s gender. Feminist baby likes pink and blue. She’s messy and sometimes gross. She’s a person more than she is a gender. I hadn’t realized that this board book is born of a comic series by the artist, though I’d seen the comics before shared on social media sites. That helps a little, but I still wish there had been more of a call for intersectionality in this board book, though that may well be because I’m used to hearing that critique leveled at modern, white feminism; I maybe shouldn’t expect from a board book what modern feminist movements are themselves struggling to incorporate, though I want to push our definitions and the actions of feminism towards its ideal manifestation. The feminist label is going to turn some off; it already has done, but there again is that same misunderstanding of feminism, which is by definition a call for equality for all regardless of gender (or race, class, or any other categorization ideally). I’m thinking now about the board books that I’ve read. There are many that feature animals or anthropomorphized objects as protagonists. There are many that have no protagonist, that feature many children or babies of different genders and races. The few that I’m recalling with female protagonists are pinker and more princess-oriented than naught, books like Katz’ Princess Baby or Grandma Kisses. Both Caroline Jayne Church’s and Joanna Cole’s I’m a Big Sister (the two books have the same title) feature a child with pink bows in her hair, and both children wear pink plaid; how weird is that? I like this book, and I really like that this book exists, but we can do better.

***

Hello, Lamb by Jane Cabrera. Little Bee-Simon & Schuster, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 2-5, Grades PreK-K.

This is an animal and animal sounds primer. It begins with the sun, but quickly moves into baby farm animals, their forms only their round faces, and their greeting paired with their sound. “Hello, piglet. Oink Oink.” It ends on the image of a baby. The round-faced illustrations are bright and eye-catching without being overwhelmingly bright.

***

A Letter to Daddy by Igloo Books-Bonnier-Simon & Schuster, 2016. Intended audience: Ages 4-6.

I wanted to give a quick shout-out to this Barnes & Noble bargain book, because it’s difficult to find reference to it. This is a sweet story about a little bear who misses his dad when he has to go away, so he writes letters to his dad about all the things that he and his mother are doing while Daddy is away. The story is really sweet, and I like the illustration style.

****

Buzzy Bee: A Slide-and-Seek Book by Emma Parrish. Little Bee-Simon & Schuster, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 2-5, Grades PreK-K.

This book was a hit at story time. The bright illustrations are accompanied by sliding panels that extend up and sideways from the book and the backsides of the panels extend the illustrations on the following page. The book is a look and find where the bee is only on one of the last pages. The panels highlight characters in larger scenes, acting like a magnifying glass. The plot uses alliteration in describing those characters, making this a good book to work on sounds associated with letters.

*****

Good Night, Little Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. NorthSouth-Simon & Schuster, 2017. First published 2012. Intended audience: Ages 1-4, Grades PreK-K.

I’m glad more books from the Rainbow Fish series are making their way to America. This is another book about a parent reassuring their little one of their eternal love, much like Nancy Tillman’s Wherever You Are, My Love Will Find You because in this the Rainbow Fish does not doubt his mother’s love because of things that he will do, but doubts that she will be there for him when bad things happen. These are all very watery things: being carried away by the tide, being caught in the tentacles of a jellyfish, but all of these are translatable enough to the world above. The story is framed as a bedtime story, with Rainbow Fish being unable to sleep for his fears. The story features the same shining scales that I loved as a child, and this being a story of Rainbow Fish as a child, he still has all his shining scales so there’s a lot of shimmer on each page. Being a toddler book, this book is much shorter than its parent story, The Rainbow Fish.

**** 

Older Audiences

Daddy Honk Honk! by Rosalinde Bonnet. Dial-Penguin Random, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

This was introduced to me as a good book for adoptive families. A male Arctic fox, Aput, becomes parent to a goose when the egg hatches. He brings the newborn around to other families in the Arctic but none of them have room for another, though they bestow gifts and wisdom on the traveling pair. Ultimately, Aput accepts his role as “Daddy” and the Arctic shows up to throw the new family a party in celebration. It is refreshing to see a book in an infrequently used environment with names appropriate to the area. There are some similarities to be made to Ryan T. Higgins’ Mother Bruce franchise, but this book has more in the way of useful parenting advice and focuses more on the love that the fox develops for its adopted goose than on humorous situations that arise from the adoption.

****

The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen and illustrated by Dan Hanna. Farrar, Straus, Giroux-MacMillan, 2008. Intended audience: Ages 3-6.

The repetition of “I’m a pout-pout fish with a pout-pout face so I spread the dreary-wearies all over the place. Blub, Blub, Blub” gets to be a little much pretty quickly, though it’s fun to see how glum you can make the refrain sound—and oh my! does it stick in your head! The whole of the book is told in rhyming lines. Fish of the sea approach the Pout-Pout Fish and tell him that he should smile, but it takes one fish from another part coming to him and kissing his face to cheer him up and to turn him into a “kiss-kiss fish” too. The two end up kissing one another on the lips at the end, though every other kiss, including the one that first cheers him up first, seem more platonic. There is some danger in normalizing kissing as a greeting in our society. Though I hate that it is so, it seems remiss not to point out the potential danger, the ways this book and that concept could be used nefariously.  All of the kissing is likely only meant create an excuse for a parent reading to kiss their child.  Maybe because I read to children not my own, I see the danger in extending these lessons beyond family.

But I’m not sure that I can approve either of using the Pout-Pout Fish’s melancholy as a point of humor or a point of contention, a negative trait in the story, because the Pout-Pout Fish’s permanent frown and glum demeanor seem like symptoms of depression to me.  The whole book seem examples of people reacting poorly to a character with depression–until the Kiss-Kiss Fish arrives.  Her response to his depression while more understanding and compassionate, sets a precedent for believing that depression can be cured by a kiss, which is again dangerous in its inaccuracy.

Basically, I wish this book had far less kissing and far better reactions to a melancholic and likely depressed fish, that it didn’t use his depression as both the story’s problem and its humor.

**

The Pout-Pout Fish Far, Far from Home by Deborah Diesen and illustrated by Dan Hanna. Farrar, Straus, Giroux-MacMillan, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 2-6.

Now cheered up, the Pout-Pout Fish is going on his first vacation. There’s a new mantra in this one: “I’m a fish who loves to travel. I’m a fish who loves to roam. And I’m having an adventure on my trip away from home!” The Pout-Pout Fish encounters several bumps on his trip but is always helped by locals who know the area. Despite its hiccups because of the help that he receives, that part of the adventure is fun. But he arrives at his destination to find that he forgot the creature (part-nightlight, part-stuffy, maybe a pet? Don’t look into that too carefully, I guess) that he sleeps with, and it seems that the vacation is ruined, but he decides to hold it “in his heart” though they’re apart and ends up having a fantastic vacation. And his creature is at home, waiting for him, when he gets back. This book covers several problems that a child could encounter while traveling—though some of the problems are more likely to be problems for adults than for children (detours, specifically)—and that makes it relevant. It fills a niche—two niches with the problem too of a missing sleep-buddy, which can happen while traveling but also at home.

****

Great, Now We’ve Got Barbarians! by Jason Carter Eaton and illustrated by Mark Fearing. Candlewick, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8, PreK-3.

Mom’s upset because of the mess that her little boy leaves in the house, particularly food mess. She complains that they will get pests. But they don’t get ants or flies or mice. They get Vlad, a hulking, Viking-like man who demands an entire cupcake. Mom quickly puts him out, but then comes Torr, “seeking glory and cheese curls.” More and more barbarians invade the house. There is a page that shames men who wear make-up, which isn’t cool, Eaton. Otherwise, this is a funny story with funny illustrations and a good message about cleaning up after oneself. I wonder if this story was born of someone mentioning a pest invasion, and Eaton thinking about what else is known for invasion. Faced with having to move to escape the infestation (perhaps calling an exterminator was a little un-cool too, Eaton; the metaphor can only extend so far, and that might’ve been a step over the line; barbarians are human, and humans shouldn’t be exterminated), the little boy cleans the house, and the barbarians sulk away.

***

Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Divya Srinivasan. HarperCollins, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

I was really excited when I saw the beautiful cover of this book, harkening to Indian art and featuring Neil Gaiman’s name, guaranteeing it more press and a wider audience. This text was previously released in 2004 as an audio of a short story as part of The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection. That the text was not originally intended for a picture book unfortunately shows; it’s longer than your average picture book and seems to have been written for an older audience, both from the syntax and the content, which is at times grim (Grimm). Its phrases do some of the work of conjuring the image which is less necessary in text intended for a picture book.  The text is beautiful though with many excellent lines. It’s a Beauty and the Beast story in the end, with the young girl, who had nothing to say so never spoke, learning to speak and to love the speaking tiger that moves like a god, and going with him to the jungle to further her education. This is a beautiful story, the illustrations are beautiful, but it is a picture book for an older audience.

****

Curious George Cleans Up / Jorge el curioso limpia el reguero by Stephen Krensky and adapted from the world of H. A. Rey. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007. Intended audience: Grade PreK-3.

This is another bilingual book from which I read only the English to my story time audience. George and the Man with the Yellow Hat get a new rug. George spills a glass of grape juice on the rug, and he tries to clean it up with paper towels, then many types of soap and a garden hose. He does manage to clean up the spill then most of the water too. This is mostly a silly story. You could laud George for acting responsibly and trying to clean up his mess, but there’s a lesson here too to be made about knowing when to go to grown-up for help; I know few grown-ups who would be glad to walk into a waterlogged house, even if it did take care of a juice stain on a new rug.

***

Rulers of the Playground by Joseph Kuefler. Balzer + Bray-HarperCollins, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

Jonah proclaims himself king of the playground. His tendency to make demands and keep an unfair portion for himself makes Lennox angry, and she declares herself queen and claims the swings. She makes demands too and is impatient for her turn on the swings. The two monarchs compete against one another for more and more land. Their friends abandon the two rulers because of their competition. Realizing that they’ve chased everyone away, they give away their power and share the playground with everyone. With a diverse cast of characters, this story provides a good lesson about sharing and about making demands on others’ time and on public places, though it seems that Augustine and Sir Humphrey Hamilton Hildebrand III don’t learn the lesson well.

***

Blue Sky White Stars by Sarvinder Naberhaus and illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Dial-Penguin Random, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

With little text, this is a visual stunner (as much of Kadir Nelson’s work is). The illustrations and text compare aspects of the American flag to moments in American history and places in the American imagination. The blue background and white stars become the night sky above the Statue of Liberty. The red and white stripes becomes maples in fall and lines of covered wagons heading West. Timely, needed, this book pays tribute to those who tried to make America great and the diversity and persistent striving towards equality that make America great now.

*****

If You Ever Want to Bring a Circus to the Library, Don’t! by Elise Parsley. Little, Brown-Hachette, 2017.

Magnolia’s back and this time she wants to hold a circus in the library, to the chagrin of the librarians. There’s a tongue and cheek reference to writing clear advertisements. A sign that says “You can do anything at the library!” doesn’t mean you can hold a circus there or cheer or clap or boo or hand out concessions; it means you can sit and read a book. This is a fun way to go over library rules.

***

You Can’t Win Them All, Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. NorthSouth-Simon & Schuster, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8, Grades PreK-3.

This book is set after the original Rainbow Fish; every fish but Red Fin, a newcomer, has one of the shiny scales that were originally Rainbow Fish’s.  Rainbow Fish and his sparkling friends are playing hide-and-seek, but Rainbow Fish isn’t winning, and he decides to quit and sulk away. Red Fin comes to him, and with her help, Rainbow Fish realizes that his sore losing has spoiled the game for his friends. He apologizes and continues the game.  This is an important lesson for young ones.

***

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. HarperCollins, 2012. First published 1963. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

Believe it or not, this was my first time reading this story, at least that I remember. I was surprised that it went over so well with my young audience (newly three years old). It’s a short story, perfect for shorter attention spans. This is a dream (nightmare?) story. Sent to bed with no supper after causing mischief in the house and telling his mother that he’d eat her up, Max is having fun as the king of the Wild Things until he misses his mother and her love, and he goes home to find his supper waiting for him in his room. There’s some beautiful language in the prose, and while there’s some internal rhyme, it doesn’t rely on that rhyme to keep the story moving.

*****

Shorty & Clem by Michael Slack. HarperCollins, 2017. Intended audience: Ages 4-8.

Like Elephant and Piggie, this is a story of two friends who know one another very well. A package arrives for Clem while Clem is away, and Shorty has to know what’s inside of it. Knowing that he shouldn’t open Clem’s mail, Shorty shakes and jumps and beats on the box until it opens. He thinks Clem will be upset, but when Clem gets back, he explains that it was a gift for Shorty and that he knew that Shorty would be unable to resist opening it. Reviewers on Goodreads are calling Clem’s behavior manipulative–and maybe I can see that view–but I know that I too try to guess what’s in a friend’s package when I see one arrive at the door.  Mostly I was pleased that Clem wasn’t upset with Shorty, that he accepted and expected his friend’s shortcoming.

****

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books. They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Book Reviews: September 2015 Picture Book Roundup: Just Shy of Outstanding

A note.  It’s been just over a month since my last update to this blog.  For that, I apologize; life just became too chaotic for me to update.  I am beginning now to piece my life back together and regain some semblance of organization and relaxation.  I have had, though, two reviews sitting partially done for a while in my drafts box: this and one more.  These two I want up on the blog sooner rather than later.  I will post them regardless of it being a Tuesday.  Look for Nine Pages to return to its regular schedule soon.

Llama Llama Gram and Grandpa by Anna Dewdney. Viking-Penguin Random, 2015. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

Meet the latest in Dewdney’s Llama Llama family. Llama Llama is spending a night at his grandparents’ house. After all the fun, when Llama Llama is getting ready for bed, he realizes that he has forgotten his stuffy in his mother’s car, but Grandpa is ready with a beloved stuffy of his own to keep Llama Llama company in the night. Told in the series’ usual singsong rhyme and rhythm and with illustrations I’ve not appreciated enough before, I’ve been able already to put this book into the hands of many grandparents as the perfect gift for grandkids because it is part of a popular series, expresses grandparents’ love for their grandkids, and is new enough that it is unlikely to be a book that the grandkids already have. Just an adorable book, really. It so truly captures the waffling of that first night away from home.

****

Olivia and Grandma’s Visit by Cordelia Evans and illustrated by Shane L. Johnson. Simon Spotlight-Simon & Schuster, 2013. Intended audience: Ages 3-7, Grades PreK-2.

With Grandparents’ Day falling as it does in September, I suppose it ought to be unsurprising to have two grandparents’ visit-themed books in this roundup, but I admit myself surprised. This one is an older book that I stumbled across only because a grandparent whose grandchild loves Olivia asked about it. This time Grandma is coming to visit Olivia, and Olivia is being told that she must give up her room and share her brother’s for Grandma’s comfort. Olivia is not pleased. She doesn’t want to sleep in her brother’s room. It smells funny, and she thought that she’d get to share with Grandma. She tries several times to get back into her own room, and her insightful Grandma detects her desire and hesitation and invites Olivia back into the bedroom herself, favoring Olivia with an ice cream sundae. Olivia then learns that Mom is always right when she is chased out of her room and into her brother’s by Grandma’s snores. This plot packs in a lot of life lessons: about sharing, about family, about obedience, about trust, about cultivating a positive outlook. Something about it left a niggling doubt in my mind. Maybe I felt that Olivia was somehow rewarded for her attempts to wheedle her way back into her room when Grandma treats her to an ice cream and some special attention. Maybe I felt like not enough time was spent on how she ought to treat her brother or not enough was said about how she was treating her brother poorly. This book is based off of the Olivia TV series, which is an offspring of the original book series by Ian Falconer. I wonder how the plot plays out in a 15-minute episode instead of as a picture book, if these things that bothered me would be dealt with or be dealt with differently so that they bother me less.

**

Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr and illustrated by Eric Carle. Priddy-Macmillan, 2013. First published 2003. Intended audience: Ages 1-4, Grades Pre-K.

Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? is very much like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, written and illustrated by the same pair. It uses the same pattern. The edition that I read uses sliding panels to reveal the animal seen on the next page before turning the page. The sliding panels were a big hit with my young story hour crowd. I’m not sure, however, that the sliding panels actually help tell the story any better. One of my eager listeners, excited to be taking part, kept sliding the panels before I could read the sentences printed on them. The book being written in a certain pattern though, it was easy enough to guess at the text. What might have been fun is to reveal just a bit of the animal on the next page, have my listeners guess or tell me what they could about the animal. This book more than Brown Bear, Brown Bear uses obscure animals: a whooping crane, a macaroni penguin…. Carle’s illustration of the dreaming child was an interesting choice too. The child looks only vaguely humanoid. I would have better believed it to be a moon than a child. By the time we arrived at the dreaming child, though, I’d lost the attention of most of my audience, so no one really batted an eye at it but the parents and I.

***

Dinosaurumpus! by Tony Mitton and illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees. Cartwheel-Scholastic, 2014. First published 2002.

This book is a play off of Giles Andreae’s Giraffes Can’t Dance, also illustrated by Parker-Rees. Instead of African animals gathering for a dance, it is a group of dinosaurs meeting in the sludgy old swamp. The text rhymes and repeats the phrase “Shake, shake shudder… near the sludgy old swamp. The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp,” which easily becomes singsong, which is perfect for its dance-themed plot. Given time I’d learn to read the whole of the book in that same cadence. This book is not as easily dance-along as, say, Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance, but it has the potential to be dance-along nonetheless with the descriptions of dinosaurs twirling and stomping. There are a lot of onomatopoeias in the text that make it even more fun to read aloud. Some less familiar dinosaurs (like deinosuchus) appear beside the more familiar triceratops and tyrannosaurus rex, so be prepared or prepare to stumble; I did stumble, but I think that I hid it decently. Small facts can be gleaned about the dinosaurs from the text and pictures. The tyrannosaurus does frighten the other dinosaurs and may frighten a few children, but he only wants to dance too. This book I came to read because a young would-be paleontologist asked for a dinosaur book, and I wanted something that would be fun enough to keep the interest of my other listeners but factual enough to please him.

****

Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Jill McElmurry. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. First published in 2008.

Little Blue Truck Leads the Way by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Jill McElmurry. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. First published in 2009.

I actually read the sequel to Little Blue Truck first because a child asked me to read it. Maybe because I read it first, I enjoyed Little Blue Truck Leads the Way more than I did Little Blue Truck. Little Blue Truck Leads the Way is a story of taking turns and being kind to one another. Little Blue Truck is a story of being kind and helping one another. In the wake of Little Blue Truck Leads the Way, Little Blue Truck seemed repetitious—but then I know that that should be reversed—that Little Blue Truck Leads the Way repeats the themes of Little Blue Truck without much variation. That being said, there was a little more, I thought, to the plot and to the moral of Little Blue Truck Leads the Way. Little Blue Truck, however, is an animal noise primer, which Little Blue Truck Leads the Way is not. Both books have some onomatopoeias that make the read aloud fun.

***                     ****

Max the Brave by Ed Vere. Jabberwocky-Sourcebooks, 2015. First published 2014.

Max knows that cats chase mice, but Max isn’t sure what a mouse looks like. A la Are You My Mother? Max asks different characters that he encounters if they are mice. They are not, and the mouse tells Max that he is a monster and that Mouse is asleep just over there. Turning the page reveals an actual monster—big, green, and hairy with sharp teeth in a wide mouth—which Max mistakes for a mouse, antagonizes, and is swallowed by. Afterwards, Max only chases mice, which he has been taught by Mouse are “monsters.” I enjoyed this story. I enjoyed this precious, precocious kitten. I enjoyed a story of a cat that believes it is chasing monsters. But I also recognize, that long term, this book hasn’t really got a lot going for it. It’s a fun book and it will remain a fun book, but I don’t think that it’s original or stand-outish enough that we’ll have many people asking for it or remembering it beyond Barnes & Noble’s promotion of it.

****

Bug in a Vacuum by Mélanie Watt. Tundra-Penguin Random, 2015. Intended audience: Ages 5-9.

A fly leaves the sunny outdoors and lands inside “on top of the world” (a globe), but from there he is sucked up by a vacuum and goes through the stages of grief as he believes his life is over. There is a place for this book. This may even be a helpful book for grieving children. When reading it aloud, I skipped the section headings that list the stages of grief, and doing so I think gave the book a better flow and made the book more appropriate for a general audience, making the educational aspect of this picture book more subtle. There are very few books for kids about death or grieving and even fewer of those that deal with the grief in an unobtrusive way or broad way (most will make direct references to death and to grieving and it being okay to grieve), and so I think this is one that I may recommend to customers in the future when they need a book for grieving children. Outside of the context of grieving, this is an odd book and a harder sell. Flies aren’t the sort of protagonists that one readily attaches too (though there is a popular Fly Guy series by Tedd Arnold), though Watt does give the fly a bold and memorable and relatable voice, rather like Mo Willems’ Pigeon. Fly’s dialogue is generously emotive, which makes it fun to read aloud. The illustrations especially I think have some clever details for parents.

****

These reviews are not endorsed by any of the authors or publishers or anyone else involved in the making of these books.  They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Book Reviews: June 2015 Picture Book Roundup: Frustrated Fathers and Anxious Children, But I Promise Happy Endings

Puzzle Pals: Kiki the Kitten by Egmont. Sandy Creek, 2014. Intended audience: Age 3.

This is an intriguing concept for a book. Pieces of the illustrations are removable and become puzzle pieces to form when put together a complete image of the title character, Kiki the Kitten. Kiki is never named except for in the title. She is not much of a character, but perhaps a fairly stereotypical cat. The story—call it that—is exceedingly short, having only four pages of text, and each page having only a sentence, maybe two. I found the cover sadly pink and “feminine.” In our gender polarized world, it’s hard to imagine most boys wanting such a book, though there is nothing inherently feminine about a cat, even if it is a female cat. While I am impressed by the ingenuity of the illustrations, that’s about all I can really give this book.

*

Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA by Jimmy Fallon and illustrated by Miguel Ordóñez. Feiwel & Friends-Macmillan, 2015. Intended audience: Ages 1-3, Grades PreK.

I knew very little about this book before its release. We had signs up at the store that displayed the cover, but gave no description. Honestly, I expected something very different—and I was glad to hear from a coworker that I wasn’t the only one. I thought not of the paternal pet name when seeing “DADA” but of the modernist art movement. I expected a book lauding Dadaism. Instead I was given a book of adult (presumably paternal) animals pleadingly or with frustration saying “dada” only to have their children blithely answer with their stereotypical animal sound (“moo” for a cow, for example). At the end all of the children look mischievously at one another and cry aloud, together “dada!” I can be impressed by Ordóñez’s expressive illustrations, though I’m not sure that I like the association with frustration (which expresses itself fairly like anger) and fathers, however accurate the emotion may be when trying to get a child to say a specific word. Ordóñez also uses good, pastel colors, which I believe are still recommended for the very young, especially as being soothing around bedtime. I may have liked this book better without the hype, without the chance to expect a book on Dadaism. On the whole though, it’s an animal sounds primer, and nothing much special beyond that. It’s hard to be outstanding with a primer.

**

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr and illustrated by Eric Carle. Henry Holt-Macmillan, 1996. First published 1967.  Intended audience: Ages 2-5, Grades PreK-K.

This is a classic to be sure, and as such, one I really feel incapable of fairly rating. This duo has had incredible staying power, most of their collaborations surviving today, being reprinted in numerous formats, still selling well, and being displayed prominently. This, I believe, was one of their earlier collaborations, maybe the first, and one that started a series of similar books that can serve as primers for animals. This one doubles as a color primer as well. Some of the animals are their natural colors. Some like the blue horse and purple cat are less so. Carle’s illustrations are fairly realistic, and yet his style is unique and recognizable. The story ends with the goldfish seeing the teacher and the teacher seeing the children and the children seeing all of the animals that had been previously mentioned, so there is the repetition of the lesson to help cement the words in the mind as well a crack in the fourth wall, of which I am always a fan. Carle includes children of many races, which was probably particularly radical in the 1960s, but we still need that diversity.

—

It’s Okay to Make Mistakes by Todd Parr. Little Brown-Hachette, 2014.

I discovered this book—as honestly I do most of these books—by pure accident. Most of them I find while cleaning up after customers. This one was in a section that I know to be less frequented (the parenting section just outside of the children’s section), and I would if I could, move it to a more prominent location. I think I might even move it out of the children’s section altogether. Though marketed for the very young, I feel as if I have more insecurity as an adult about making the mistakes given as examples in this book than I ever did as a child—maybe because as an adult I feel the pressure to succeed and to conform more than I did as a child, and I know that my consequences may be more devastating in that they may result in losing a job and being unable to pay my rent or feed myself rather than being kicked off an extracurricular team or being called to talk to the teacher. How many children care if they put on mismatching socks? How many adults worry that a manager or potential employer will notice their mismatched socks and think less of them because of they grabbed the wrong clothes in the dark, rushing out the door to be on time? The other examples given in the book are more universal across the ages. It’s always important to know that you don’t have to know the answer. It’s always good to be reminded that you might discover something new by trying something different. Honestly, I think I would sell more copies of this during graduation season alongside Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! than during any other time or to any parents of smaller children. I actually think that this book would go nicely just beside Bradley Trevor Greive’s in my room—books to read when feeling discouraged.

I’ve read several of Todd Parr’s books, and I find him enchanting. His colors are beyond Crayola vibrant. His vibrant colors create a universality that leaps across racial barriers and his childlike drawings sometimes surpass gender barriers besides. Animal characters also help to create a universality of reader. Parr leans towards second person text, directly addressing the reader, again lending a more universal feel to the story.

The illustrations are fairly simple, his faces being noseless, little more than smiley or frowny faces. The characters, figures, and backgrounds are all fairly blocky with a few lines to illustrate movement when necessary.

Parr ends his books with a brief summary of his idea and his “Love, Todd” signature.

****

Hector’s Shell by Thomas Radcliffe. Little Bee-Bonnier, 2015. Intended audience: Ages 4-7.

Hector misplaces his shell while playing at the beach and goes in search of a new one, coming up with many creative solutions, including an origami shell, which turns mushy and leaves smudges of ink all over his body. It was enjoyable turning the page to see what new idea Hector would try and how it would inevitably go wrong. There was a lot of text in this book, making it better for an older reader. In Hector’s joy at finding his shell, there was a touch of a message about positive body image. After the fantastic build up, [SPOILER] it was a little bit anticlimactic for Hector to find his shell in the place that he’d left it. [END SPOILER]

***

Orion and the Dark by Emma Yarlett. Templar-Candlewick, 2015. First published 2014. Intended audience: Ages 3-7, Grades PreK-2.

Orion is scared of a lot of things—but especially of the dark. Fed up one night he yells at the dark, and the dark descends in a humanoid shape to show Orion why he shouldn’t be afraid of the dark and how much fun can be had in the dark. There’s even more text in this book than there is in Hector’s Shell. As with Hector’s Shell, a lot of the text is outside the story thread. For example, the sounds that Orion hears in the dark are written out. Examples of Orion’s fears and his ideas to escape the dark are also written into the illustrations. One of the cleverer aspects of the book is several pages where a flap is pressed towards the previous page to create a different image and reveal the text of the page. One page like this makes Dark shake Orion’s hand. A later page allows Dark to wrap his arm around Orion. It is a touching effect. The book is gentle and gently humorous, laughing at Dark’s fears of Dad’s snore and elbowing adults with references to the stars of Orion’s Belt. A Booklist review rightly compares the illustrations with Oliver Jeffers, who ranks among my favorite illustrator-authors. Emma Yarlett may become another illustrator for whom I watch when shelving new picture books.

****

These reviews are not endorsed by any one involved in their making.  They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.

Book Reviews: November 2014 Picture Book Roundup: It’s Blue… or Maybe Green?

Away in a Manger illustrated by Lisa Reed and Randle Paul Bennett. Candy Cane-Ideals, 2012. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

The text and audio of this book are the first two verses of “Away in a Manger,” sung by “Junior Asparagus,” who is unfortunately one of my least favorite musical talents among the VeggieTales cast. The illustrations are bright and colorful, and VeggieTales fans will appreciate seeing familiar faces in a probably equally familiar tableau. I witnessed one parent trying to read this book (or it might have been its sister book, Silent Night) to a child, and stumbling to an awkward halt when it turned out that the audio button was the text in its entirety. That rather detracts from the book’s ability to lead to interaction between a parent and child. A parent can turn the pages, but the time spent on each page is limited and the parent’s voice is lost amid Junior’s warble.

*

Step Into Reading: Level 2: A Pony for a Princess by Andrea Posner-Sanchez and illustrated by Francesc Mateu. RH Disney-Random 2002.

I was drawn to the book by the promise of a pony but was a little worried by the book being a Disney spinoff. I was more impressed with this book than I expected to be. The plot is well formed. A deductive thinker could reason the plot from details. Belle sees a barrel of apples, and later decides to return to the barrel to sate her hunger, only to find the barrel empty, then logically she seeks to discover what happened to the apples. I do think it unlikely that a wild pony could be so easily caught by a trail of sugar cubes, but this is a Disney story, and Belle qualifies as a Disney princess, so I will forgive the implausibility and call it more of an inevitability.

****

Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann. G.P Putnam & Sons-Penguin Putnam, 1996. First published 1994. Intended audience: Ages 3-5.

This was at least a second read. Good Night, Gorilla is something of a classic. I think the illustrations are what make this book. The zookeeper goes about saying goodnight to the animals (making it a plausible animal primer), but on the first page, the gorilla steals his keys and follows him through the zoo, unlocking cages. The whole of the zoo follows him home and into his bedroom. Too many responses to her “Good night, dear” alert the zookeeper’s wife of the trouble, and she calmly gets up out of bed, takes the gorilla’s hand, and leads all the animals back to their cages. The gorilla and the mouse escape even her watch and follow her once more back to the bed that she shares with the zookeeper. I appreciate the presentation of a more alert, more able wife.

***

Peekaboo Barn by Nat Sims and illustrated by Nathan Tabor. Candlewick, 2014. Intended audience: Ages 0-3, PreK.

This lift-the-flap animal primer comes with a free app download code. This is the first of a few books I’ve since come across with app companions. Apparently, this book was an app first. The animals are cartoonish with bug eyes that are mildly disturbing. Sometimes there’s only one flap on a page, sometimes there are two. At first read, this was confusing, as I didn’t know to look for two flaps and would open the barn doors to discover only one of the animals whose sounds I’d just read. Then I noticed that the loft doors also occasionally opened. I’m not sure if as a toddler reader, this variation would be exciting or confusing. If I’m being finicky, the animals are not seen or entering the barn, but the scene never changes, the sun never moves across the sky. It would have been very simple to introduce more plot into this book.

*

That’s Not My Snowman… by Fiona Watt. Usborne, 2014. First published 2006.

There’s not much exciting about this winter edition of a series of touch-and-feel primers that spans all manner of creature, machine, and… sculpture. I do puzzle what sort of squishy nose one could give a snowman. I prefer to have logical connections between the illustrations and text. The inclusion of the ever-present mouse in this series adds a nice element of continuity to the story and the series.

**

An Elephant and Piggie Book: Waiting Is Not Easy! by Mo Willems. Disney-Hyperion, 2014.  Intended audience: Ages 6-8.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I am a fan of Mo Willems and of Elephant and Piggie in particular. I was not expecting the mixed media illustrations in this book nor the subtle hint of the passage of time as the white space becomes darker. I think both the messages of patience and of the beauty of nature are valuable to today’s children, so used—as we all are—to instant gratification. I like it even better on a second reading, particularly I enjoy Piggie’s answers to Gerald’s questions Piggie about the surprise.

*****

Baby Bear Sees Blue by Ashley Wolff. Little Simon-Simon & Schuster, 2014. First published 2012. Intended audience: Ages 2-6, Grades PreK-1.

I am biased towards Wolff’s books and this one in particular. Wolff is a professor at my alma mater. This book I saw as an unbound proof when she read it to us. I saw it later read at a local library story hour and witnessed the unbiased enjoyment of it from the children and the librarian. Wolff’s illustrations are jewel bright, and the text does not seem overly formulaic as many primers can seem, though Wolff does keep some repetition in the line “Baby Bear sees [color]” to give the story a familiar structure and rhythm. Wolff does not shy from poetic language within her text, but she keeps true too to the toddler understanding of the world with Baby Bear’s speech, as when Baby Bear asks who is waving at him, indicating an oak leaf stirred by a breeze. I had not considered till reading a particularly detailed review on Goodreads that the closing line makes the book fit appropriately too into the bedtime story mold.

****

These reviews are not endorsed by any one involved in their making.  They are independent, honest reviews by a reader.