Dylan fans extant in 1979 when his album Slow Train Coming was released won’t be able to keep his rasping voice out of their heads, but that shouldn’t impair their appreciation, or children’s, of this wonderfully imaginative visualization of the lyrics. The book starts off, logically enough, “in the beginning,” as a painted man stands on the skin of the earth and contemplates animal-shaped constellations in a starry sky. However, readers immediately realize that he’s standing on a photographed potato skin, an apt collage element, and that such combinations of painting and photograph will run through every page. A painted pig appears in the middle of a real bed of hay, while the collage horns of a bull look demonic in a full-bleed spread of brightest red, with a photographed crowd in the stands, and a matador who is offstage except for his brocade-wrapped arms and a wisp of his taunting cape. The images continue in a splendid visual extension of Dylan’s wry wit; children will delight in the chance to supply the final animal’s name themselves. (Picture book. 3-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-202005-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
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