It would take a hard heart indeed not to love Halperin’s signature watercolor-and-pencil illustrations with their dulcet colors. They have the architecture of altarpieces, with a large, half-round frame surmounting a frieze of smaller images. Lindbergh’s verse, four lines per spread, with the first and last line the same, seems as artless as this siblings’ trip to a family farm, sweetened into gossamer memory. Two sisters, Jill and Beth, go for a visit to their aunt and uncle’s farm. There are biscuits and honey, nooks and crannies inside and out, flowers and berries, sheep, cows and barn cats. At night, with “fireflies and stars,” when Beth hears a noisy freight train and a singing thrush, she misses her parents and is comforted in the gentlest way by Jill. It’s a remembered dream of a farm, where everything is rosy and the kitchen always smells of baking. The relationship between “tall sister” and “small sister” is charming and tender, and the poetry is rhythmic without being clunky. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8037-1189-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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SEEN & HEARD
A snappy rhyming text celebrates an extended family’s joyous gyrations to the jazz spinning on the turntable. From waking to sleep, Baby’s right in the thick of it, as siblings, grandparents and cousins move and groove: “So they BOOM-BOOM-BOOM / and they HIP-HIP-HOP / and the bouncin’ baby boogies with a BOP-BOP-BOP.” Wheeler’s verse scans beautifully and begs to be read aloud—danced to, even—making this a fine choice for preschool and kindergarten story times. Christie’s bold, double-paged gouache compositions locate this colorfully garbed, expressively hip family within an equally vibrant community. As Baby’s big dark eyes get glassy with fatigue, the party winds down. “Daddy sings blues. / Mama sings sweet. / While that snoozy-woozy baby . . . / . . . sleeps deep, deep, deep.” Exultant and infectious, from the red-and-yellow-striped endpapers to the final “OH YEAH!” (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-15-202522-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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