Tag: Picture Books

by Doreen Cronin

Giggle, Giggle, Quack

The farmer goes on vacation, leaving his brother in charge, with written instructions. But duck has the typewriter and replaces the instructions with his own notes. So the animals all get pizza ordered, have a movie night, and the pigs have a bubble bath in the house. When the farmer calls to check on things, he’s appalled to hear all the animals sniggering in the background!

34 pages, 2002

 

Click, Clack, Quack to School

The farmer gets invited to visit a local school, and the animals invite themselves along. They’re all very excited. The farmer sternly tells them school is a place to be serious and calm. Chastised, the animals put on their best behavior. They happen to arrive at the school during recess time, and the animals are delighted to drop their calm demeanor and romp on the playground with the children- who are just as rowdy! (Except for the mice, who read graphic novels in the shade under the slide, ha).

34 pages, 2018

 

Click, Clack Surprise

It’s the duckling’s birthday, so the farmer and all the animals are throwing a party. Little duck has never been to a party and doesn’t know what to expect. He watches how the other animals prepare: duck takes a bath, cat washes herself with her tongue, the sheep get a haircut, the hens have a dust bath, and the pigs! Well, they get refreshed in the a mud spa. Little duckling copies them all- and by the time the party is starting, he’s in quite a state! Funny.

42 pages, 2016

Both borrowed from the public library. Very silly, I’m sure kids love these.

Rating: 3/5

by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee

Two friends who are opposites, but they do enjoy some of the same key activities. Especially roller skating (the skates were drawn very well!) Three little stories in here. Bink loves her new outrageously colored socks, but Gollie thinks they are an affront to look at and refuses to make her friend pancakes until she takes them off. Eh. I laughed at the picture where Bink, tired from roller skating to the store and back, is struggling to take off her knee-high socks, looking quite cross. They come to a compromise. Second story, Gollie goes on an (imaginary) trek up a mountain and doesn’t want interruptions, but Bink keeps knocking on her door. (This reminded me of Winnie the Pooh and Rabbit). In the last story, Bink gets a new friend- a pet fish. Gollie rolls her eyes at all the unsuitable things Bink does with her fish- like bringing it along to the breakfast table (in its bowl) and taking it out roller skating. Yes, roller skating while carrying a fish in a bowl. Disaster. Gollie saves the day. And the last scene really made me smile. While I thought some of the situations were a bit over the top (the fish going skating, and what kind of friend refuses to be around someone because of their socks?) I did like that it showed friends don’t always have to like the same things, they can support each other and find ways to get along anyway. I like the sketchy style artwork drawn by Tony Fucile, too.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
82 pages, 2010

by Kay Thompson

Eloise has to take a bath. So she locks herself in the bathroom and makes it a long drawn-out affair, with her pet turtle and many pretendings: storms at sea, pirate ships, mermaids, ocean exploration, water-skiing and sailing and rowing crew etc. etc. With all the water running (tub faucet, shower head and sink open) so you can imagine what happens: overflow. Dripping down from the topmost floor and nobody in the hotel can figure out where the leak is coming from! The water causes consternation for important guests, ruins desserts in the dining area and floods the masquerade ball! But in the end it is alright, charmingly so.

This one has two foldout pages- one that opens vertically (like the elevator page) to show all the plumbing, and the other a horizontal double-wide spead of the flooded ballroom extravaganza. Such fun! Delightfully expressive illustrations.

Note: this book was written in 1964, but not published until 2002. There’s a note in the back that explains what happened.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
64 pages, 2002

by Kay Thompson

This book has longer, smaller text on more pages than I expected. So it took all of my allotted thirty-minutes reading time. Especially because the illustrations have lots of detail that just begged to be pored over. It’s about a girl who lives in a top floor suite of a very posh New York hotel. She is constantly all over the place, in and out of the ballrooms, conference rooms, fine dining areas and all the other places guests never see- like the boiler room and the switchboard (tells you how old this one is!) My she is quite the character! Full of smirks, self-importance, lots of imagination, and easily gets cross! You can tell from expressions on the adults around in the pictures that she really tries the patience of many, but has the indulgence of others whom she’s charmed. She scurries all around and gets into everything and has a grand time (of course also getting into trouble). I can well see how this book has stayed in print for so many decades. WHY did I not know this one as a child? It’s great.

Must add: there’s one fantastic fold-out page that opens up vertically, a diagram showing Eloise’s escapes up and down the elevators and stairs- delightful and obviously been handled by many readers before me.

Oh, and Eloise skates! Ha ha. She’s never pictured skating (thought I’m sure she would, through those long hallways) but on one page she dives to the floor in a crowd claiming to have lost her skate key, and on another she primly says she clashes her skates on purpose sometimes, and there’s the key forgotten on the floor if you look close (and know what it looks like). This made me chuckle, because I happen to have watched a video (just before my accident) of someone who actually bought a set of old-fashioned metal clasp-on skates, and tried using them (they handled quite well!) and she talked about how her grandmother who skated would always mention being careful not to loose her skate key, and then on the video she did just that- lost it in the grass and had to go back looking. So I laughed.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5
65 pages, 1955

by Linda Ashman

I really liked this book (even though I can see how some parents might protest at the disobedience). Samantha is a little girl with new roller skates. She’s eager to try them out, but her mom is too busy to help. Unable to wait, Samantha puts them on by herself and wobbles from one stationary object to another. Then she navigates the hallway. Feeling like she’s got the hang of it, Samantha sneaks out to skate on the sidewalk in front of the house. She happily skates a bit and then admires the view of town from top of a hill- not realizing how close she is to the slope. Suddenly finds herself rolling downhill, and she doesn’t know how to stop! She zooms through town, crashing through many different people’s activities (including a wedding) until a fortunate incident returns her home again- where she’s able to run inside, take off the skates and sit down with a book just before her mom comes in the room. Phew!

Lively, cute and fun. And this might seem a picky thing, but I appreciated that in all the scenes, Samantha’s poses look like what you actually do on roller skates. Unlike this book– where on the cover and in some interior pages, the illustrations look more like poses you take running or walking, rather than skating. And I keep thinking of that because I remember from being at the rink, seeing the kids who make walking stride motions with their legs, and don’t get anywhere- it’s a different motion- you have to step ahead, push out and glide. Eh, I think I’m a bit obsessed with this notion.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5
40 pages, 2011

Cows That Type

by Doreen Cronin

This book is really silly, but I can see why it’s so popular and made it onto that puzzle collage. And it’s become a whole series- I might just go look for more of them, while I’m still in need of easy things to read. So these farmer’s cows have discovered an old typewriter in the barn and figured out how to use it. The clacking noise is annoying enough, but then one day the cows start writing the farmer notes. Insisting that he do things to improve the farm, to their benefit. Next the chickens join in with their own demands. When the farmer does nothing, the cows and chickens go on strike, refusing to give him milk and eggs. He tries to solve this problem using the duck as an intermediary- but finds in the end, that while he’s resolved his initial disagreement with the cows, other difficulties are on the horizon. All because of a typewriter. Made me laugh.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
32 pages, 2000

by Florence Parry Heide

There’s a new activity I’m interested in doing on a regular basis- I can’t stop thinking about it, planning where to go, it’s even part of my dreams more often than not lately. But I’m not allowed to get back on roller skates until the doctors deem I’m completely recovered from the concussion – sigh – (of course). So, next best thing (can’t watch tutorials or things about it right now yet either) is practicing in my socks on the wood floor, and reading books, of course! I looked up everything my library has on the subject. It’s not much. Going to read them all. Starting with the easy, simple books and working up to actual novels- that’s just how my brain can handle things right now.

This first choice was not the greatest. It’s not about skating. It just features a bunch of things that terrify young kids- some with very good reason- lke getting a vaccination, realizing your mother doesn’t know where she parked the car in a huge lot, suddenly coming to close quarters with a bee- and some purely emotional- thinking everyone is laughing at you, getting caught telling a lie. And others just silly- imagining a giant bird will suddenly carry you away. Or getting stuck in an art museum with a bunch of adults (ha). And then there’s roller skating. The only reason this book came up in my search was because skating is mentioned in the book summary- and it must have featured large in the artist’s mind, because it’s one of the few scary things that gets a double-page spread illustration: a kid just a blur of motion zooming down an incline with a look of shock and horror on their face: Skating downhill when you haven’t learned how to stop is scary.

Yep, it sure is! I crashed myself to a stop on the gravel verge of a hill when I was a kid. I had those metal skates that screw onto your shoes, and nobody showed me how to use them (I don’t think I even knew there was any proper technique). Walking home around the whole block with bloody knees put me off skating for a long time.

Until now. But kind of ironic that the first book I pick up that mentions skating has such a negative take on it.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5
32 pages, 2000

Citizen Hawk of New York City

by Janet Schulman

I had forgotten that when I saw this book on another blog years ago, it was identified as a children’s picture book. Forgot and didn’t notice that when I came across it in the library catalog and put in a request. Pulled it off the hold shelf, had a moment of surprise and decided to read it anyway. It has lovely (if a bit loose in style) watercolor illustration and the text isn’t dumbed-down. About the red-tailed hawk of unusually pale feathers that took up residence on a ritzy apartment building in NYC and hunted squirrels, rats, pigeons etc in Central Park nearby. Most of the details about the hawk’s life in a big city were familiar to me, from having read Red-Tails in Love earlier. I did find one piece of info that felt new- this hawk living in the city was remarkable because most red-tailed hawks are too shy to live in such a busy, populated location. I thought he was just notable for his coloration and the decision to build a nest on a building instead of in a tree. Since Pale Male’s first successful nesting (initial clutch failed), other red-tailed hawk pairs have begun living in the city- one on another building not too far from Pale Male’s preferred roost, and others in the park trees. People suspect that one of the second hawk pair that nested on the other building, is Pale Male’s offspring, and so too might be the others that live in the surrouding area. I was curious how the hawks fare with competition from peregrine falcons? do they have conflicts? but the book didn’t mention anything about this.

I enjoyed this book because I like artwork and reading about animals, even though I’m well into adulthood! I’m sure any kids who are interested in animals and how they adapt to live among people, or just birds of prey in general, would find this a great read too.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
34 pages, 2008

More opinions:
A Sea of Books
Chicken Spaghetti
anyone else?

by Sarah Stewart

After reading Stitches I wanted to see more by the artist, David Small. His illustrations have a slightly different feel in this book- they’re feel softer, more gentle. Still just as vivid, with the expressive line I admire so much. Story is of a young girl in what I assumed was Depression era, but not sure. She has to leave the family farm because times are hard (I guessed they were having trouble feeding the family) and goes to stay with her uncle in the city. He runs a bakery. He never smiles. She wants to work hard and prove herself useful, but also longs to see her uncle smile. And brings her love of plants with her, packets of seeds from her grandmother’s garden. Gradually through the pages you see green appearing then filling the pages- first in a corner here, on a fire escape there. She grows flowers in window boxes and more people stop to look at them from the sidewalk, drawing customers into the shop. But she’s really making a huge surprise for her uncle up on the roof of the building. There’s a double page spread near the end that’s just a glorious riot of flowers, bold and free with color. Lovely. It’s all told in brief letters the girl writes home, so not a lot of detail in the words, you have to gather it visually through the images, but it’s one you want to linger over anyway. The art is a bit loose and sketchy but I enjoyed trying to identify some of the species pictured anyway: daffodils, amaryllis, tulips, sunflower, zinnias, daisies, morning glory, cosmos, marigold, astilbe . . . Really nice story of a girl facing a hard situation, bringing some cheer into a dingy place with her ‘green thumb’.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5
40 pages, 1997

or There Must Be More To Life
by Maruice Sendak

I saw this one browsing in the library and picked it up. I thought I\’d read it before, but I must have just seen the final panels reproduced elsewhere- the beginning was more or less unfamiliar to me.

The first part is chapter-book style, with full page illustrations. Jennie, a sealyham terrier, has everything she could want in life but feels unsatisfied so she runs away to find adventure. She wants to have a star role in the theater but needs experience. A passing milkman assumes she is the newest nursemaid for a child in a big house nearby- exclaiming one must need experience for the job- so the dog accepts that and does her best to go make the baby eat her dinner. Instead, it\’s the dog who is eating tons of stuff on nearly every page! she does land the theater position in the end, and the final pages show the performance- a silly nursery rhyme about a dog eating a mop. Yeah, what?

Some other things are really odd- the dog talks to a plant and eats all its leaves until it can\’t speak to her anymore (she also later talks to an unhappy tree). The family in the big house moved away, left their baby behind, and then promptly forgot their original address so couldn\’t return to get her. And they keep a lion in their basement to eat the nursemaids who fail at the job (main requirement is getting the baby to eat). A lot of it is just the kind of ridiculousness and skewed logic a child might employ, but I\’m not sure if my kid would find this book amusing, or just plain weird!

Myself, I didn\’t really care for it in the end. But the illustrations, with their detailed pen-and-ink texture, are lovely. They transcend the story.

Rating: 2/5          70 pages, 1967

DISCLAIMER:

All books reviewed on this site are owned by me, or borrowed from the public library. Exceptions are a very occasional review copy sent to me by a publisher or author, as noted. Receiving a book does not influence my opinion or evaluation of it

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