Month: March 2011

Monkey Truck: Ingenious Mash Up

| Tasha

monkeytruck

Monkey Truck by Michael Slack

Whenever there is trouble in the jungle, Monkey Truck races to the rescue!  He saves small lizards from crushing elephant feet.  He rescues big hippos from a shrinking and muddy water hole.  He grinds gears to get the job done with his truck bed filled to bursting.  He is Monkey Truck!  Fueled by bananas and always ready to go, he is the hero of the jungle.

This book grew on me once I got into the story.  It has a frenetic pace that toddler will enjoy immensely.  It also obviously has its own screwball humor from the premise alone!  That humor is really what makes this book work so well.  From fart jokes to bouncing stacks of muddy hippos, there is plenty of laughter to be found here.

The book has been printed on thicker pages, making it an ideal transition book for toddlers from board books to picture books.  This is clearly a book that is meant for very young children who just might demand why they can’t have a monkey truck of their very own!

If you do a toddler story time at your library or work with a toddler group, this is a book that will really work when shared out loud.  Be prepared to mash your animal sounds with engine noises and your young listeners will be sure to enjoy it!  Appropriate for ages 1-3.

Reviewed from copy received from Henry Holt.

You can check out the wordless trailer for the book below:

Also reviewed by:

Hide and Squeak: Bedtime Fun

| Tasha

hideandsqueak

Hide-and-Squeak by Heather Vogel Frederick, illustrated by C. F. Payne

Daddy Mouse chases Mouse Baby around the garden and through the house trying to get him to head to bed.  Mouse Baby hides in the kitchen, in the bathroom, and the living room with his father right behind.  Until finally, Daddy manages to grab his tail just before he runs off to a new hiding place.  The pace of the fast-moving book changes to a slow bedtime story as Mouse Baby is tucked into his matchbox bed.  This is an adorable bedtime story with just enough running and romping to keep it lively and fun.

Frederick’s writing incorporates repetition and rhyme.  Daddy Mouse has a rhyme he says again and again in the book, making this a great choice for small children:

Mouse baby, mouse baby,

where can you be?

I can’t see you.

Can you see me?

It’s time for bed.  It’s time for sleep.

No more time for hide-and-squeak.

The tone of the entire book is playful with the added fun of a chase and hide and seek.  Payne’s illustrations have a nice timeless feel to them that adds warmth to the book.  They also have the added charm of coming from a mouse-high perspective that children will enjoy.  The relationship of father and child is highlighted in both the illustrations and the text. 

A great bedtime pick, this book just may become a favorite night time read for your family.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Simon & Schuster.

Also reviewed by:

Small Saul

| Tasha

smallsaul

Small Saul by Ashley Spires

The author of Binky the Space Cat returns with a brand new character for us to enjoy!  Small Saul is not your regular pirate type, but he has known since he was small that he wanted to spend his life at sea.  When the Navy turned him down because he was too short, Saul enrolled in Pirate College.  Even in college, he didn’t fit in.  He was great at singing shanties and less good at sword fighting.  He wasn’t rough or tough, but he excelled at swabbing the deck.  Finally, he had his pirate diploma and headed for the docks.  But his time at sea was not what Small Saul expected and definitely not what the pirates on The Rusty Squid were ready for!

Spires infuses the entire story with puns, pirate humor and just plain fun.  Her writing is meant to be read aloud with its natural pacing.  The broad comedy also makes this book ideal for sharing with a group.  The illustrations continue the humor of the text with Saul’s wide-eyed glasses, his diminutive size, and the rather blank faces of the pirates.

Nicely, the book is not just humorous, it also has a strong message at its heart.  It celebrates differences between people that can first be seen as problems and then are seen as treasures.  It’s a message worthy of pirate gold.

This is one pirate book that will not be walking the plank any time soon.  It’s ideal for any pirate-themed story time and will appeal to even elementary-aged children thanks to its humor.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Kids Can Press.

Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons

| Tasha

snowrabbit

Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons by Il Sung Na

The author of A Book of Sleep returns with another book filled with striking illustrations.  When winter comes, all of the animals know it.  Some fly to warmer places, others take a long sleep, some swim to warmer waters, and others grow a thicker coat.  The white rabbit leads readers through so many different types of animals and how they deal with the winter season.  Then spring comes and all of the animals know it’s a new season.  That includes our friend the rabbit who looks very different now!

Il Sung Na has created a book that celebrates changing seasons with a sense of joy and fun.  Readers will see migration, hibernation, and much more in this book.  The text remains simple and straight-forward, keeping the concepts to a preschool level nicely. 

The real impact is made by Il Sung Na’s incredible illustrations that are lush, vivid and at the same time laced with a real delicacy of line and pattern.  Created using handmade textures combined with digitally generated layers, this is a sort of illustration that is stylized, modern and still welcoming and friendly.

Highly recommended, this book is a beautiful exploration of changing seasons, ideal for welcoming spring.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Random House Children’s Books.

Also reviewed by:

Cinnamon Baby

| Tasha

cinnamonbaby

Cinnamon Baby by Nicola Winstanley, illustrated by Janice Nadeau

Miriam was a baker who had her own little bakery where she made wonderful breads.  She always saved the cinnamon bread for last because it was her favorite.  As she made the bread, she sang the songs of her childhood, weaving them with the scent of cinnamon in the air.  Then one day a young man named Sebastian bought some cinnamon bread and continued to by a loaf every day for a year.  Finally, he proposed to Miriam and she said yes.  Soon a baby was on the way, but when the baby arrived it cried and cried and cried.  Nothing would settle the baby down until Miriam got a sudden idea  and headed for the bakery with her family.  She made every kind of bread with the cinnamon bread saved for last.  And what do you think happened when her voice mixed with the cinnamon and sugar in the air?

This modern magical story is simply delicious.  Winstanley’s writing is gentle and strolling, building towards the story and throughout until it is neatly tied together by the end.  There is a sense of ease, of simplicity and of love throughout the entire book that is very comforting and warm. 

Nadeau’s illustrations have a modern feel to them with their bright mix of yellows and pinks against browns and grays.  At the same time, they feel timeless with the people riding bicycles, pushing prams, and the motif of curling wrought iron. 

This sweet story has the spice of cinnamon to keep it interesting and the warmth of bread baking to keep it filling.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Kids Can Press.

The Tree House: Wordless and Wonderful

| Tasha

treehouse

The Tree House by Marije Tolman and Ronald Tolman

This is a wordless picture book by a father/daughter team who have created a magical immersive experience.  A polar bear swims towards a tree house that stands alone in the water.  Later, a brown bear arrives in a boat.  The two bears stay together in the tree house, reading books as the sea below turns pink with a flock of flamingos.  As the flamingos pass, more animals arrive, including a rhino who bashes the trunk of the tree, two pandas, some owls, a hippo, and a peacock.  Another bear arrives via balloon and takes the peacock away.  The other animals head off, leaving the two original bears together in the tree house.

My synopsis doesn’t capture the beauty of this picture book at all, as is often the case with wordless picture books, the story is so much more about the pictures than anything that can be summarized in words.  The illustrations are simple and beautiful.  The tree house itself is unchanging, printed in exactly the same way from page to page.  It offers a consistency while the world changes around it.  The level of the water rises and falls, the sky changes colors, the seasons move.  The tree house stands, staying constant through it all, even as it supports so many animals.

There is a lovely gentle mood throughout the book.  A sense of playfulness and unexpectedness fills the story as well.  The surprise of the suddenly pink page when the flamingos arrive is visually arresting and very effective.  The colors are deep, from a blue that is almost black and perfect captures late evening to a canary yellow that sings. 

This is a book of wonder, a beautiful place to spend some moments with someone in a tree house out in the water.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Lemniscaat.

Also reviewed by:

Mirror: A Reflection of All of Us

| Tasha

mirror

Mirror by Jeannie Baker

This book tells two stories at the same time from two distinctly different cultures.  Each story focuses on a family and a day in their lives.   One story is set in Sydney, Australia where a boy lives with his family and baby sibling.  They drive a minivan to the hardware store to get more materials to renovate their home.  The other story features a family in Morocco.  Here too a boy lives with his family and his little sibling.  They travel to the market by donkey to sell a rug, some sheep and some chickens.  That same rug is the one picked out by the Australian family at a rug store to have in their home.  The entire book is a celebration of the interconnected nature of our lives no matter what nation we live in.

The book can be read in several ways, either both stories at the same time, or each one completely separately.  It opens with the Australian story with an English introduction on the left which is read from left to right.   The Moroccan story is on the left with an introduction in Arabic.  The entire Moroccan section is read right to left just like Arabic.  Each story has its own separate pages bound together with a shared spine and cover, which I see as very symbolic of the entire book concept.

After the introductions, the bulk of the book is wordless.  Through Baker’s incredibly delicate and detailed collage illustrations, readers will discover the universal nature of the two cultures and also their differences.  Baker shows different foods, different pets, different transportation, different lands but the stories are so similar, the families so alike, that the focus is never on the differences but on the similarities.

This is a masterpiece of a picture book.  While not appropriate for a story time, it is a book that should be shared for its celebration of diversity, multiculturalism, and humanity.

Reviewed from library copy.

To get a better sense of the structure of the book, take a look at the video below:

Also reviewed by:

Messing with Classics

| Tasha

Last week, I posted about an upcoming movie version of Peter Pan with the working title of Peter Pan Begins.  My hopes were not high for the film, given the disappointments of previous Peter Pan films.  I mean, you know that it’s bad when it’s the Disney version that was the best version done yet.

I thought my expectations could not be lowered, but I should not have feared.  They were lowered.  Considerably.

According to Cinematical, the film being pitched as Peter Pan Begins rethinks the relationship between Peter and Captain Hook.  They are writing Peter Pan and Captain Hook as BROTHERS. 

Ugh.  Ick.  Sigh.

Pettyfer as Peeta?

| Tasha

Looks like Pettyfer may be building on his teen novel heart-throb career.  He’s already appeared in both Beastly and I Am Number Four.  Now he is under consideration for Peeta in The Hunger Games.

So what do you think?  Is he Peeta to you?

Thanks to /Film for the information.