Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-K-In a story from Austria, a young narrator relaxes for bed by finding and counting giants. Starting with two walking on stilts, he counts up to six then back to two. The text seems to have lost something in translation. While some lines have a set rhythm and rhyme ("I look near, I look far./I look up, I look down./I find all my giants, those thirty-four clowns!"), others do not scan well: "When I go off to bed,/I don't look for sheep, but instead/I look for giants all over town." Each group of giants is given a collage spread. Although there are some funny details in the backgrounds, the creatures themselves are grotesque and sometimes inappropriately pictured. One of the four giants in the bathtub balances a martini glass on his bare bottom. With the wealth of bedtime books available, this is one to skip.-Laura Stanfield, Campbell County Public Library, Ft. Thomas, KY (c) Copyright 2011. 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 Kirkus Book Review
This odd compendium of story, song lyrics and advice to parents misses the mark as a prescription for sweet dreams.The beginning and ending scenes focus on a little boy who is having difficulty getting to sleep. He concentrates on counting imaginary giants as a way to relax, enumerating groups of different giants from a pair up to six and then back down to another pair of huge creatures, shown with just their feet sticking out from a red blanket. The rhyming text in these sequences is quite sing-song and doesn't scan well, possibly as a result of having been translated from the original German. The giants themselves have an eerie, nightmarish quality in the illustrations, which are done in a loose, cartoonlike style in watercolor and pencil. The activities of the giants are nonsensical, as in a dream, showing them on rooftops or coming out of a huge watering can. The words to a song are also provided, urging "happy thoughts" and repeated deep breathing, though there is no music included, and the words don't readily transfer to a familiar melody. Two pages of advice to parents on getting children to sleep finish it off.Strange giants, sing-song rhymes and generic psychological advice don't add up to a soothing bedtime read. (Picture book. 3-5)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
