A whimsical but well-grounded environmentalist tale.
A boy brings back the stars by helping to save Earth in Gonzalez’s illustrated fantasy tale.
Winston’s grandmother Estrella once told him that stars were made of promises, and when the stars vanish, he gets worried. He uses a telescope in the lighthouse where he lives to peer deep into space, but only sees the moon, which he asks for help. The moon shows him a path into the sky on a ladder made of stardust. The world above the clouds is magical, and when Winston rescues a fallen star, it promises to introduce him to the other, hidden stars, who fear that humans will hurt them the way they’ve harmed their own planet. Indeed, when Winston arrives at the stars’ hidden village, they’re afraid of him. He pledges that he’ll do everything he can to save his planet, and assures the stars that there are others like him who will do the same. He offers to give them a necklace from his grandmother—the one thing he has left to remember her by—because it’s his most important possession: “Consider it my promise to you all,” he says. The stars accept, and soon Winston makes good on his pledge by planting trees and organizing garbage cleanups. Gonzalez’s straightforward text guides readers through Krapivina’s riotous, full-color cartoon illustrations of Winston’s magical journey. The bright hues zing and zip across the pages with whirls of light and shadow. Gonzalez uses just the right amount of text to allow the illustrations to take over storytelling duties occasionally, resulting in a balanced blend of words and art. The notion that the missing stars are related to the Earth’s pollution—which, of course, makes stars harder to see—feels right on the nose. Although the tale seems to place the burden of caring for the planet on individuals—there’s no talk of making larger structural changes in society—Winston’s actions are likely to empower young readers to do their part to make the world a brighter place.
A whimsical but well-grounded environmentalist tale.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Hello, Wonderworld
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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