Review by New York Times Review
GROWN-UPS MAY NEED occasional reminders, but children know that any journey can be as exciting as its destination. In three new picture books, even a casual stroll brings a world of unexpected pleasures, providing ample time for playing, bonding and spontaneous acts of generosity. In "A Dog Day," written and illustrated by Emily Rand, the nameless narrator - an impatient Airedale terrier - heads out for a walk with giddy anticipation. All he wants is to keep moving forward. But things don't go according to plan. Although he expects a direct route to the park, and a game of fetch, his owner is in no rush. They make several stops, including a hardware store, a butcher shop and a bench outside a cafe, where the man sits with a menu. The dog mopes and waits. He complains in rhyming couplets: "I really don't like this busy street. / Surrounded by people's legs and feet." His placid expression masks a growing impatience: "He always has to stop and talk. / I thought that we were on a walk!" This amusing book is aptly intended for toddlers, for whom the agony of waiting will seem all too familiar. They will surely identify with the dog's frustration at being dragged along on errands. In one scene, with the adults' legs visible in the background, the Airedale sits facing a child in a stroller: "I wonder if he's also bored/of grown-ups chatting, and being ignored?" He contends with one delay after another: "What now? We've stopped. The park's just there./I've been so good: this isn't fair!" At last he finds himself having an off-leash romp, "in the park with all my friends." He returns home tired and happy. The walk was rewarding after all. Accompanying this lively story are pen-and-ink drawings in black and white, with soft splashes of gray and blocks of stripes, dots and crosshatching. Despite her limited color palette, Rand's impressive array of textures, tones, shapes and patterns captures the endless variety of images to be found on the simplest of strolls. Bernard Waber's "Ask Me" begins on a glorious fall day as a girl and her father amble through a park. The book opens with a directive: "Ask me what I like," she tells him. "What do you like?" he says. "I like dogs. I like cats. I like turtles. I like geese," she says, spotting a skein of geese over a pond. She prompts him with another question to ask her, and another. They pass joggers, people walking dogs and children playing. They kick piles of leaves into the air. The girl is attentive to everything around her, but never loses the thread of their conversation. "Ask Me" has no plot. Nothing revelatory happens. The entire book unfolds in dialogue. No quotation marks are used; the conversation floats along the pages. Through these ordinary exchanges, Waber conveys a close, affectionate familial bond and a child's relentless inquisitiveness and energy. The daughter goes on to name more of what she likes: riding merry-go-round horses, digging in the sand, the color red, stories about bears; and what she loves, including flowers and ice cream cones - yet the father never loses patience. He clearly enjoys asking her questions, and he appreciates her delight. They are smiling on every page. At one point, he tells her why birds build nests: "So they will have a safe place to lay their eggs." The girl responds, "I knew that." "Why did you ask?" he says. "Because I like to hear you tell it." It's a wonderful moment. Next comes a two-page spread, which contains no words. Amid a splendor of vermilion, orange, gold and green, the father and daughter lie blissfully in the grass, their shoes kicked off. The scene shows them relaxed and happy to be in the presence of each other. Their walk will go on - but for now, perhaps they are pausing to reflect on all they've seen and done. Waber wrote more than 30 books for children, including his classic "Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile" series. He died at 91 in 2013, and the posthumously published "Ask Me" reminds us of his subtle humor and tremendous empathy. Throughout, Suzy Lee's polychromatic illustrations astonish. Each page bursts with color. The warmth and exuberance of these pictures - furiously scribbled landscapes using colored pencils, offset by delicate drawings of dragonflies, butterflies and more - enrich the book's poignant themes. Both visually and in its detailed narrative, "Ask Me" celebrates intense curiosity, the sensory pleasures of an autumn walk and the ways in which both parent and child benefit from exploring their community together. Also following a father-daughter stroll is JonArno Lawson's exquisite "Sidewalk Flowers," illustrated by Sydney Smith. It's wordless, but in this instance language would seem intrusive or didactic. The absence of text seems to provide a more eloquent and nuanced story, one that allows children to freely share their perceptions of the narrative. Lawson has said that he initially sketched out a rough version of the story, then left it to Smith to interpret his work. The book is based on his own experience of walking inattentively down a Toronto street with his daughter, who collected flowers to share with others. What might have been a trite, sentimental tale about the power of giving is instead something to treasure. I'd give this book to anyone with a coffee table, in a household with or without children. The girl and her father hold hands while walking down a gray urban street. The only pop of color on the first page is the girl's bright red hoodie, redolent of Peter's snowsuit in Ezra Jack Keats's "The Snowy Day." More color suffuses these pages as the pair gets closer to home. In a series of panels, the girl comes across flowers sprouting in unlikely places: next to a bicycle chained to a pole; inside a railway underpass; in a pavement crack near a bus stop; and along the sidewalk. As she picks the flowers, including daisies, buttercups and dandelions, her distracted father doesn't notice. (He's on his cellphone much of the time.) But he is always standing nearby, waiting for her to catch up. Walking along, she places dandelions on a dead bird. She leaves flowers next to a man sleeping on a park bench. She meets a dog on the street, shakes its paw and puts flowers into its collar. She is wholly absorbed in her task. Although these small gestures of kindness go unnoticed, she keeps giving anyway. Arriving home, the girl shares the rest of the bouquet with her mother and siblings. Then, in the backyard, while gazing at birds flying above, she tucks one last flower behind her own ear - a lovely daisy, just for herself. CARMELA CIURARU is the author of "Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 12, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
Almost two years after Waber's death comes the release of this new picture book about a father and daughter who explore their neighborhood, asking questions as they walk. Ask me what I like. / What do you like? / I like dogs. I like cats. I like turtles. Their conversational topics run the gamut from animals they notice along the way (geese, frogs, butterflies) to stories about bears and the details of next week's birthday party. They return home in time to brush their teeth and share a good-night kiss. Lee's expressive artwork has a naive feel, well suited to Waber's childlike narration. Her illustrations favor red, which the child identifies as her favorite color. While this is a quiet story and the dialogue is unattributed (it will take some practice to sort out who is speaking when reading aloud), the love this father and daughter share comes through loud and clear. Pair with Marie-Louise Gay's Any Questions? (2014) for a slightly different take on queries.--Weisman, Kay Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this posthumously published tale by Waber, best known for his Lyle the Crocodile books, a girl directs a conversation with her father. "Ask me what I like," she says. "What do you like?" he asks. Lee (Open This Little Book) pictures the duo on a park outing, and the girl delights in falling leaves as she admires the natural surroundings ("I like geese in the sky. No, in the water. I like both"). After naming many favorite things, she gets more specific: "How come birds build nests?" Her father warmly responds, "All right, how come birds build nests?" sustaining the give-and-take. The girl's words appear in black type and the father's in dark blue, so readers know who is speaking despite the untagged dialogue and lack of quotation marks. Taking advantage of negative space to emphasize a bright sky, people's faces, and the girl's swingy dress, Lee lines the characters in charcoal-gray pencil and frames the pages in scribbles of maple-leaf red, autumnal gold, and denim blue. The easygoing verbal exchange and affectionate visuals celebrate a close father-daughter relationship while recognizing beauty in everyday simplicity. Ages 4-8. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-A vivacious child and her father share an early autumn stroll. "Ask me what I like," she says. Dad's dutiful answer is printed in purple: "What do you like?" Energetically she answers with a list. Sometimes dad presses for details, "Geese in the sky? Or geese in the water?" She answers, "I like geese in the sky. No, in the water. I like both. Ask me what else I like," she demands, seeing something new she wants to tell him about. So they proceed through their day, celebrating the brief but precious time when children are gaining a sense of self and exploring the power that comes with it. The patience required to converse with a small person who wants to dictate every part of the interaction is sure to be familiar to parents, but the poetic text rises above the mundane and captures the beauty, energy, and innocence of these conversations and holds them up for readers to appreciate without becoming saccharine or trite. Lee's lively, colored-pencil drawings are a perfect match to the text. The line drawings are similar in style to those in Wave (2008) and Shadow (2010, both Chronicle), but Lee expands from the single-color palette she employed in those titles to a full spectrum of bright autumn colors. VERDICT A first choice for libraries, especially those looking to expand their selection of father-as-caregiver stories.-Anna Haase Krueger, Ramsey County Library, MN (c) Copyright 2015. 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
Theres more to this idyllic view of an ambling, chatting father-and-daughter pair than meets the eye; the queries and responses they share capture the kind of give-and-take that gradually refine a small childs language: Ask me what I like. What do you like?I like bugs. Insects? No, bugs. I like butterflies. And lightning bugs. Fireflies? No, lightning bugs. Meanwhile, the two explore wildlife and words with equal contentment: And I like flowers. No, I love flowers. Bees love flowers too. Right? Right. Their walk takes them through a park, a playground, past a fountain, through some woods, and back home again. The sight of a merry-go-round prompts a conversation about horses; a sandbox recalls a beach. What else do you like? elicits the more general red and rain, which in turn leads to making up words (splooshing), to telling stories, and to the future (next Thursdays much-anticipated birthday). With a spare, informal colored-pencil line; imagination-welcoming white space; and a grand eye for color, action, and witty detail, Lee depicts the two companionable figures in a landscape littered with crayon-bright autumn leaves, their stances relaxed and affectionate whether shes perched on his shoulders enjoying an ice cream or, back home, getting a last good-night kiss. This vicarious outing is an excellent model of one-on-one interaction that might inspire young listeners to form their own questions. An easy text for new readers, it could also help tuck in a toddler with a sweet good night. joanna rudge long (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
As a little girl and her father take a walk together, the girl directs her dad to ask her questions about what she likes. The girl, clad in a bright red coat, gently commands, "Ask me what I like." Dad, wearing a bold blue cap, complies. The answers flow: "I like dogs. I like cats. I like turtles." As they walk through the neighborhood, the conversation continues, spurred on by what the girl observes. She likes geese in the sky and in the water. She likes lightning bugs but not fireflies. She loves flowers and ice cream cones. She likes "red everything." She likes "splishing, sploshing and splooshing in the rain." She likes those words she made up. Sharp-eyed readers will notice the text color subtly changes from gray when the girl speaks to dark blue when her father does. Their simple back-and-forth dialogue speaks volumes about their strong father-daughter bond. As endearing and joyful as it is to read Waber's words aloud, it is Lee's illustrations that make this title truly special. Primary colors in pencil dominate the images, with grays and light tans lending calming touches. The autumn trees and wildflower field look wonderfully scribbled, contrasting beautifully with the finely detailed geese, butterflies, and maple leaves. Lee makes masterful drawing look deceptively simple, creating visual appeal for readers of all ages. Sublimely satisfying. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
