Review by New York Times Review
most picture books could just as well be shelved under self-help. If so many books for children tend toward the didactic (well, maybe not the ones about beasts consuming tacos), that may be because you're never too young to have problems. But if you're lucky, you'll have an adult who reads to you, an adult who knows that answers to all manner of problems can be found in books. The young protagonist of Shinsuke Yoshitake's "Still Stuck" isn't named and is indeed barely seen, his (though it could just as well be her) little face obscured by the T-shirt in which he finds himself trapped while undressing for a bath. It's a reiatable predicament, and his response is instructive: He learns to cope. Life won't be so bad inside his cotton confines; he can drink from a straw, and learn how to keep the cat from tickling his tummy. The story's moral is elusive - keep a stiff upper lip, look on the bright side or just hope mom will arrive, deus ex machina, to help you. Yoshitake's illustrations are so charming they obviate the need for an obvious lesson - my kids laughed throughout, though never harder than at the poor hero's bare bottom as mom bathes him. Each child is unique, but all children think butts are hilarious. As problems go, getting stuck in a shirt isn't so terrible. But childhood (adulthood, too, but don't tell the kids that) does involve a reckoning with fear. Dan Santat, whose "The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend" won a Caldecott Medal, makes fear the subject of "After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again)." So does the stupefyingly prolific Mo Willems, in "Sam, the Most ScaredyCat Kid in the Whole World," a sequel to his "Leonardo, the Terrible Monster." Willems plays it for laughs and does it well; any child familiar with the author-illustrator's oeuvre - and few, it seems, haven't yet met his Pigeon, Knuffle Bunny, Gerald the elephant and his pal, a pig named Piggie - would expect no less. Sam, the titular character, is afraid of everything (spiders, a jack in the box, the daily paper) though not his friend Leonardo, who as a bona fide monster might be expected to instill fear. Boy and monster meet girl and monster - Kerry and her pal Frankenthaler. The monsters leave it up to the kids to stop screaming and figure out how not to be afraid of one another. They find a way. You'll forgive me for reading into it something deeper: Sam, a boy with pinkish skin, Kerry, a bespectacled brown girl, not just making peace but joining forces.I'm with Sam in that I fear most of these days' news cycles; what a pleasure to be reminded that people working together can vanquish fear. Willems works in a cartoony vernacular, while Santat's aesthetic is darker, near realist, so his Humpty Dumpty is an uncanny fellow, clearly an egg but one decked out in jeans and a skinny tie. The book's illustrations are suffused with fear - scary, in fact. Humpty is quite alone on most of the pages; the urban landscape in which he dwells is one of shadows, plus that looming wall from which he famously tumbles. As the subtitle promises, the story begins postfall, Humpty so afraid now of heights he can't sleep in his loft bed. I was so genuinely surprised by the book's conclusion that I won't spoil it. It's always gratifying to see how an artist can turn even the most familiar tale into something new. The heroines of Barbara McClintock's "The Five Forms" and Liz Garton Scanlon's "Another Way to Climb a Tree" are both adventurers, but even daring souls have their troubles. Scanlon's Lulu - drawn by Hadley Hooper in a beautiful throwback style - has never met a tree she didn't want to climb. So what to do when confined to her room on a sick day? McClintock's unnamed protagonist is similarly game for anything, certain she can master the forms of traditional Chinese martial arts. She ends up in over her head, her body's contortions conjuring an actual crane, leopard, snake and dragon who wreak havoc in her house. "Another Way to Climb a Tree" contains the ineffable thing that makes the picture book so special a form. Over repeat visits, the reader - of any age - will find and savor new details in Hooper's pictures. And the way that Lulu solves her problem and climbs a tree, illness or not, is quite magical. If story is less of interest in "The Five Forms," it hardly matters; There is something irresistible about McClintock's painterly illustrations, which are a departure from the beautiful realist style of her previous books (like last year's "Emma and Julia Love Ballet," an all-time favorite in my family). The new story has a comic strip's construction, and a young reader will naturally find joy in the utter destruction the forms of the title release, as well as in how sensibly the story's heroine deals with that mess. One problem all kids, and people who are no longer kids, can understand is the vicissitude of mood - the way human happiness is fleeting, sadness inevitable. It takes a special writer to grapple with this and still come up with an interesting book, and Lemony Snicket is a special writer. He writes with clarity as well as complexity, and can bounce from silly to serious quickly and easily. Snicket's wit is never at the expense of adult or child, and somehow accessible to both. Yes, Snicket has his shtick: ponderous character names, an air of the old-fashioned, unlikely plot twists. But these are deployed to winning effect in "The Bad Mood and the Stick," which is about a bad mood that is stuck to a girl named Curly, who picks up a stick that falls from a tree. The illustrator, Matthew Forsythe, isn't reinventing the wheel by depicting the bad mood as a cloud, but of course, that particular wheel is perfect as it is; it's remarkable, really, how with only a squiggly outline and a wash of color the artist creates so vivid an antihero. Self-help books (all sorts of books, come to think of it) can almost all be distilled down to one takeaway, a few words of wisdom. To explain the inexplicable (the fickleness of mood) Snicket tells us "You never know what is going to happen." This turn of phrase transcends being a simple moral - the closing coda of his odd story - to become something more like a mantra. Some of us are struggling with getting dressed, some yearning to climb a tree, some stuck with a bad mood, and the truest thing for all of us is that no matter what, we can't know what's coming. We've all got prob- are. If adults lems, no matter how old we can't step in and solve all of a child's troubles, we can at least give them that particular reassurance. You never know what's going to happen; life's joy is in seeing what comes next. RUMAAN alam is the author of "Rich and Pretty." His second novel, "That Kind of Mother," will be published next year.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 12, 2017]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
It's bath time, and Yoshitake's tiny protagonist insists that he can undress himself. Bad move: his yellow shirt gets stuck on his head and traps his arms against his ears, leaving him looking like a pudgy buttercup with an exposed belly and feet. Rather than rail against his fate, however, the boy contemplates how his life might unfold with this shirt-trapped state as his new normal: "I was sure lots of important people had been stuck before," he says as Yoshitake pictures him on a dais in front of an adoring crowd, flanked by security guards and important-looking head-of-state types. "So I decided to stay that way forever! It wasn't so bad," the boy says, striking a triumphantly goofy pose on a mountaintop. But second thoughts soon kick in, and the boy's efforts to untangle himself leave him with his pants twisted around his ankles; Mom intercedes at last, making short work of the problem, but a pajama-related wardrobe malfunction isn't far off. With its poker-faced text and effortlessly executed visual jokes, it's the essence of kid comedy-and almost certain to inspire some real-life disrobing shenanigans. Ages 3-7. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-"I can do it all by myself;" a phrase that every toddler/preschooler utters two to three times per day. Yoshitake perfectly tells the tale of a young child's pursuit for independence as he struggles to get his shirt off. Once our protagonist begins to undress, he quickly gets stuck in the shirt and wonders-what will happen if he is stuck forever? He ponders if "there were others still stuck, too? I bet we would have fun together." Just as he decides that being stuck forever wouldn't be that bad, his mother rescues him and whisks him away to the bath. The problem seems to be solved until he tries to get into his pajamas and he is "stuck again." Cartoon illustrations complement the humorous story line. VERDICT A tale that will be relatable to young children and will make parents laugh as well. Recommended for general purchase for most picture book collections.-Kristen Todd-Wurm, Middle Country Public Library, NY © Copyright 2017. 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
A boy gets stuck taking off his shirt and imagines what it would be like to be stuck forever. The combination of independence, perseverance, and stubbornness will be familiar to any parent of toddlers, and maybe even to the toddlers themselves. The illustrations' strong lines embrace the absurdity of the boy's predicament, and his yellow shirt stands out against the muted color palette. (c) Copyright 2018. 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
A child dreams of conquering the world even when clothing proves tricky in this Japanese story translated into English.It's bathtime, and the stubborn protagonist insists on getting undressed without any help from Mom. But, as anyone who spends time with young children knows, shirts are notoriously difficult to take off. The young, light-skinned narrator gets stuck in the bright yellow shirt, unable to see, arms hopelessly entangled. The kid becomes quickly resigned to the inevitable, even optimistic: "I was sure lots of important people had been stuck before," the child muses in front of an imagined, admiring crowd, the pulled-up, inside-out shirt exposing a pink belly. The challenges of being stuck in a shirt are addressed and overcome. "But what if I got thirsty? / I would find a way": an extra-long straw. The child starts thinking about the friendships that could be formed with other children stuck with their shirts over their heads and dreams of summiting a mountain"But then I got cold." The child valiantly tries self-extrication again, hoping that wriggling out of their pants will help (it doesn't). Mom finally comes to the rescue, hauling our protagonist off to the tub, a few cheeky butt cameos rounding out the humor. Throughout, Yoshitake uses cartoon conventions to great effect, multiple legs indicating frantic scrabbling, motion lines futility and frustration. This hilarious, inspirational, and infinitely familiar story about greeting life's inconveniences with good humor will make adults and children alike giggle. (Picture book. 2-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
