This book delights on many levels as it affirms the importance of young children’s close relationships
Readers tall and small will recognize themselves between the pages of this book.
This sparsely worded picture book exudes the pleasure that emanates from the relationship between a caring adult and a child. Beginning with “Me tall / You small,” the text progresses through other mostly rhyming descriptors, some of them nonsense (bop, bip; whoop, droop; tired, wired), that show the contrasts between an exceedingly energetic child and an adult who vacillates between matching exuberance and exhaustion. Readers will delight in the way the adult attends to the child, acts silly right along with the child, and gives kudos to the child for often being cooler or smarter than the adult. The anthropomorphic weasels walk upright, live like humans, and are androgynous enough for readers to interpret them as any gender. Some might even read the story as a friendship between a child and an older friend or caregiver rather than a parent. On the book’s endpapers appear what look like drawings on a chalkboard of everyday items such as a brush, toothbrush, underwear, umbrella, chair, and other household and personal items that the characters might use on a typical day. Stylistically similar to Cliff Wright’s Bear and Ball books and Olivia Dunrea’s Gossie series, this sweet picture book, translated from German, will find eager fans among American readers.
This book delights on many levels as it affirms the importance of young children’s close relationships . (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77147-194-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
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 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sweet.
A caregiving bear shares with its cub how love has defined their relationship from the first moment and through the years as the cub has grown.
With rhymes and a steady rhythm that are less singsong-y than similar books, Stansbie seems to have hit a sweet spot for this offering on the I-love-you-always shelf. Readers follow the adult and child as they share special moments together—a sunset, a splash in a pond, climbing a tree, a snuggle—and the adult tells the child that the love it feels has only grown. Stansbie also takes care not to put promises in the adult bear’s mouth that can’t be delivered, acknowledging that physical proximity is not always possible: “Wherever you are, / even when we’re apart… // I’ll love you forever / with all of my heart.” The large trim size helps the sweet illustrations shine; their emphasis is on the close relationship between parent and child. Shaped peekaboo windows offer glimpses of preceding and succeeding pages, images and text carefully placed to work whatever the context. While the die cuts on the interior pages will not hold up to rough handling, they do add whimsy and delight to the book as a whole: “And now that you’re bigger, / you make my heart sing. / My / beautiful / wonderful / magical / thing.” Those last three adjectives are positioned in leaf-shaped cutouts, the turn of the page revealing the roly-poly cub in a pile of leaves, three formed by the die-cuts. Opposite, three vignettes show the cub appreciating the “beautiful,” the “wonderful,” and the “magical.”
Sweet. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68412-910-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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