The buildup to the revelation of Emma’s titular question takes some time, while Urdahl introduces Emma, her parents and her beloved, hospitalized Grandma. “Are you going to die?” Emma finally asks when permitted to visit, and Grandma, who has already soothed Emma’s fears about her I.V. by calling it her “dancing partner,” emerges as a hero by using humor and gentle honesty to respond: “Not today. I have a Chutes and Ladders game to play.” While Emma and her parents’ emotional turmoil leading up to the hospital visit resonates, it’s troubling that her parents haven’t taken the time to sit down with her to talk. By placing the responsibility of answering and comforting Emma on the gravely ill Grandma rather than on her parents, the book introduces a contextual dissonance, given that its likely users are parents seeking to provide their own children with a literary mirror to their own experiences. Dawson’s cartoon-style watercolor illustrations occasionally provide successful comic relief, but often emerge as one half of a contradictory pairing with the seriousness of the text’s content. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58089-145-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2009
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Henry has graduated from kindergarten, but that doesn’t mean he has necessarily left it behind. When his mother asks how his first day in first grade went, he says, “I didn’t like it because I missed kindergarten.” His mother encourages him to talk about it. As Henry goes about debriefing her, he develops a whole new picture. The teacher was new—and a man!—but he was also a good guy, as evidenced by the fact that he liked Henry’s pet worm. There were new kids, too, but Henry had already made a friend in Oswaldo. There was a cool science corner with a really fast guinea pig (discovered when you just happen to open Curly’s cage door). Minor problems are knit up, a little independence is dispensed and the first day of first grade turns out actually to be pretty neat. Prospective first-graders will find Carlson’s story enormously buoyant, floating those first-day cares away on the backs of her sweet, lopsided characters. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: July 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-06127-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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