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osprey_archerTwo picture books of note today! And one dishonorable mention.
First, Emily Gravett's The Odd Egg, because it's amusingly bizarre. At the beginning, duck feels all lonely and left out because all the other birds - the owl, the parrot, the sparrow - have eggs. But then duck finds an egg! A giant, green, spotted egg! And then all the other birds' eggs hatch, leaving duck along sitting on this odd egg...
Which then hatches into a motherfucking crocodile. The crocodile celebrates its birth by instantaneously attempting to eat all the other birds. (Don't worry, the manage to fly away in time. I think. The illustration is not entirely clear.)
That's it. That's the book. I bet it's a real crowd-pleaser when you read it to kindergartners. Suddenly, a crocodile!
I also read Sandra Merkle's Little Lost Bat, which is about a bat that loses his mother to an owl attack, only to be adopted by a bat who lost her baby to... well, any of the many things that can go wrong for baby bats. Presumably falling off the ceiling and being eaten by something.
The story is apparently based on sound bat biology; according to the end note, scientists studying Mexican free-tailed bats have discovered that a good 10% of bat mothers are looking after babies not their own, so the adoption is quite possible. It's somewhat unusual for the animals in a picture book to actually act like animals, so I very much enjoyed this change of pace.
The dishonorable mention goes to the Pinkalicious series. I haven't actually read the first book in the series, which presumably has some redeeming features? (she says hopefully), but both of the later books that I've read - Aqualicious and Emeraldalicious - both feature bizarrely flat characters. Now, admittedly, picture book characters often aren't shining models of character depth and complexity, but given the word limits that the authors are working with, I think they generally do a good job giving a sense of character. Olivia is outgoing and grandiose, Eloise is a brat, Noni is nervous.
(Noni is Nervous is actually a picture book I read today. It's about an anxious little girl trying to prepare herself for her first day of school. I think it all resolves a bit too quickly, probably because the picture book length means that Noni's anxieties have to be resolved within the first few days of school, but nonetheless, it's a good portrayal of a shy, retiring child.)
Pinkalicious and her equally two-dimensional brother run into magical occurrences that seem too random to even stir a sense of wonder. (A different illustration style might help with this.) This series is apparently very popular and it puzzles me.
First, Emily Gravett's The Odd Egg, because it's amusingly bizarre. At the beginning, duck feels all lonely and left out because all the other birds - the owl, the parrot, the sparrow - have eggs. But then duck finds an egg! A giant, green, spotted egg! And then all the other birds' eggs hatch, leaving duck along sitting on this odd egg...
Which then hatches into a motherfucking crocodile. The crocodile celebrates its birth by instantaneously attempting to eat all the other birds. (Don't worry, the manage to fly away in time. I think. The illustration is not entirely clear.)
That's it. That's the book. I bet it's a real crowd-pleaser when you read it to kindergartners. Suddenly, a crocodile!
I also read Sandra Merkle's Little Lost Bat, which is about a bat that loses his mother to an owl attack, only to be adopted by a bat who lost her baby to... well, any of the many things that can go wrong for baby bats. Presumably falling off the ceiling and being eaten by something.
The story is apparently based on sound bat biology; according to the end note, scientists studying Mexican free-tailed bats have discovered that a good 10% of bat mothers are looking after babies not their own, so the adoption is quite possible. It's somewhat unusual for the animals in a picture book to actually act like animals, so I very much enjoyed this change of pace.
The dishonorable mention goes to the Pinkalicious series. I haven't actually read the first book in the series, which presumably has some redeeming features? (she says hopefully), but both of the later books that I've read - Aqualicious and Emeraldalicious - both feature bizarrely flat characters. Now, admittedly, picture book characters often aren't shining models of character depth and complexity, but given the word limits that the authors are working with, I think they generally do a good job giving a sense of character. Olivia is outgoing and grandiose, Eloise is a brat, Noni is nervous.
(Noni is Nervous is actually a picture book I read today. It's about an anxious little girl trying to prepare herself for her first day of school. I think it all resolves a bit too quickly, probably because the picture book length means that Noni's anxieties have to be resolved within the first few days of school, but nonetheless, it's a good portrayal of a shy, retiring child.)
Pinkalicious and her equally two-dimensional brother run into magical occurrences that seem too random to even stir a sense of wonder. (A different illustration style might help with this.) This series is apparently very popular and it puzzles me.
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Date: 2015-11-03 12:37 pm (UTC)Just checked out Pinkalicious... the art style seems very bland. I can forgive a fair amount in a picture book if the art is engaging, but... meh.
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Date: 2015-11-03 01:34 pm (UTC)I've been trying to figure out what bothers me so much about the art style in Pinkalicious. I've enjoyed books with far more minimalist styles, so it seems weird to complain that it's too boring, but the word I keep coming back to is "flat." It's like everything in the picture has the same level of detail, so there's no sense of depth.
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Date: 2015-11-05 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-05 02:22 am (UTC)