Review by New York Times Review
A crew of cherubic, messy-haired toddlers in fantastically stylish outfits bounces through this simple rhyming celebration of love in its many forms. On each page, the word "love" is paired with just one other ("me," "you," "smile," "hug") as we see Massini's characters at the beach and at the playground, with a dog and a cat, and reading, painting and playing instruments. A teddy's lost, then found, adding a dose of drama to a gorgeous and altogether satisfying little world. DID YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU? Written and illustrated by Christa Pierce. 28 pp. Harper/HarperCollins. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 2 to 6) As mismatched pairs go, the digitally drawn blue-gray bird and rusty brown fox in this tribute to unconditional love are a winning one. At first, the tiny bird's declaration of ardor catches the fox unaware, but surprise gives way to the dreamy smiles of someone who knows he's adored but likes to hear it anyway. By the end, the bird's extravagant words morph into that eternal parental promise of devotion, "however big you get to be." The fox gets the crucial last words: "I love you, too." I LOVE MOM By Joanna Walsh. Illustrated by Judi Abbot. 32 pp. Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 2 to 6) These brother and sister tigers just know they have the best mother in the entire world, and they may well be right. Not only can she "make a paper plate into a plane," she helps them tidy up, bakes cakes and pushes the swing way high. Quite simply, "No other mother looks so fine." After carrying them home from the playground, one in each arm, she makes dinner, then laughs as they splash and spit water at her from their bath. What a woman! (Her rough black stripes are super-cute, too.) THERE'S THIS THING Written and illustrated by Connah Brecon. 27 pp. Philomel. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 8) Not everyone is comfortable in the realm of emotion. Take the adorably diffident girl with shaggy red hair who says, in a heart-shaped word bubble: "There's this thing I really like. I would like to like it even more." She can't utter that loaded word, and she looks for it in all the wrong places. Only when she gives up does a boy with a heart-shaped balloon arrive. It's a refreshing reminder that it can be hard to ask for what we want, and that even introverts need love above all. IN MY HEART A Book of Feelings By Jo Witek. Illustrated by Christine Roussey. 32 pp. Abrams Appleseed. $16.95. (Picture book; ages 3 to 8) "My heart is like a house, with all these feelings living inside," announces a sprightly little girl, rendered in skillful, nuanced line drawings. A giant heart-shaped cutout gets smaller on each page of this ingenious, attractive book, so that its multicolored layers appear to peel off, onionlike. The little girl explores a range of emotions - brave, mad, calm, hopeful, shy, sad - and invites a child to name her own feelings. What could have been heavy-handed is instead buoyant and delightful. ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 1, 2015]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Concentric heart-shaped die-cuts are the centerpiece of this elegantly designed book about emotions, first published in France. An expressive pencil-drawn child uses relatable similes and metaphors to describe her various feelings: "Some days my heart feels as heavy as an elephant. There's a dark cloud over my head, and tears fall like rain. This is when my heart is sad." A featureless gray-blue elephant sprays water on the girl from its trunk, which swoops toward her from across the spread. Elsewhere, a red cross symbolizes a broken heart in need for healing (dressed as a nurse, the girl wraps the cross with a bandage), and the girl appears as Red Riding Hood, pursued by a wolf, to demonstrate fear. Witek covers an impressive emotional range while Roussey's childlike drawings evoke each feeling with playful style. Ages 2-4. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Although this picture book exploration of feelings takes a similar list-and-describe approach to that of Jamie Lee Curtis's Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day (HarperCollins, 2007) and Dr. Seuss's My Many-Colored Days (Knopf, 1998), don't count that against it. The approach still works, especially when the feelings evoked have such child-friendly imagery ("My heart is yelling, hot and loud," the child narrator explains). The book pairs brief verbal explorations of emotions with evocative imagery, popping with bright colors against the effectively used white background. Throughout the representative illustrations-a bright yellow star to represent happiness, an elephant to represent sadness, a silhouette of the Big Bad Wolf to represent fear-a series of heart cutouts, ever decreasing in size, appears on the pages, until the heroine is able to find her feelings everywhere.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In this French import, a young girl explores human moods by describing her feelings ("I bob along gently like a balloon on a string...lazy and slow"), then identifying the emotion ("my heart is calm"). The colors outlining cardstock die-cut hearts vary appropriately with the emotion, but some illustrations are mysterious: why is an elephant spraying the girl on the "sad" page? (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Vibrant die cuts, whimsical drawings, and a text that explores a wide range of feelings with just the right touches of imagination and wit combine for a most impressive picture-book experience. Readers will be attracted right away to the rainbow hues of the multilayered die-cut hearts that recede inward from the cover. The device entices readers to turn the page and enter into an exploration of emotion. An expressive girl explains: "My heart is like a house, with all these feelings living inside." On the facing page, the shape of a house surrounds the interior die-cut hearts. With each page turn, emotions from happiness to sadness, bravery to fear, anger to calm are displayed. Witek expertly utilizes similes to help young readers grasp the concepts; a bright yellow star represents happiness, but a red cross with a bandage on it is emblematic of a broken heart when feelings have been hurt. When the girl's heart is "silly," she is "like a bouncy bunny." At other times her heart is "as heavy as an elephant" or hopeful, "like a plant reaching toward the sky." As the pages turn, the hearts get smaller and smaller, until the final spread shows a garden with dozens of hearts. Readers are left to answer a question: "How does your heart feel?" Consider this beautifully designed French import a must-have for any storytime or one-on-one sharing regarding the somewhat sticky subject of feelings. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
