Review by New York Times Review
Music is the food of love for Herman, a crocodile who plays oboe, and his neighbor Rosie, a doe who sings jazz at the Mangy Hound. The two lead parallel lives, enjoying bits of each other's music as it wafts through the night air until at last they meet on a Manhattan rooftop. Gordon, an Australian, sets his charmingly illustrated story in the present day, adding texture and history with old maps and newspaper clippings. FROG TROUBLE Deluxe Songbook. Written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton. 68 pp. Workman. $16.95. (Picture book and CD; ages 3 to 8) You might have been so distracted by Boynton's prolific literary production that you missed her musical endeavors, which include an album of plainchant and polyphony in Latin and pig Latin. In "Frog Trouble," she illustrates 12 witty children's country songs with pictures of the adorably smiley animals who ostensibly sing them. The real singers, who can be heard on the accompanying CD, include Alison Krauss, Dwight Yoakam and Fountains of Wayne. NEVER PLAY MUSIC RIGHT NEXT TO THE ZOO By John Lithgow. Illustrated by Leeza Hernandez. 40 pp. Simon & Schuster. $17.99. (Picture book and CD; ages 3 to 8) It's not every day that you see an elegant gray-haired lady fending off an encroaching bear with her flute. But in Lithgow's zany and toe-tapping song, illustrated with comic abandon by Hernandez, all sorts of unexpected things happen when a boy and his family attend an outdoor concert at a city zoo. Though the boy nods off, the animals are so excited by what they hear they storm the stage and take over the instruments. WHY DO I SING? Animal Songs of the Pacific Northwest. By Jennifer Blomgren. Illustrated by Andrea Gabriel. 32 pp. Sasquatch. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 8) Humans aren't the only creatures with the urge to sing. Blomgren describes the wild songs of marmots, fin whales, meadowlarks, loons and others, imagining what might compel them. Of the starfish, she writes delicately: "They just might be singing a song we can't know. / We don't see or hear the world the same way / As so many living things near us each day." Gabriel's big, rough-textured watercolors give a good sense of the particular beauty of the region. WHEN THE BEAT WAS BORN: DJ Kool Here and the Creation of Hip Hop. By Laban Carrick Hill. Illustrated by Theodore Taylor III. 32 pp. Roaring Brook. $17.99. (Picture book; ages 6 to 9) "Hip hip hop. Hippity hop." Clive first hears that rhythm booming from a neighbor's house in Jamaica, and when he moves to New York City at the age of 13, he takes the sound with him. Known as Hercules because of his height, Clive begins D. J.-ing in the Bronx after his father brings home a set of six-foot speakers. Hill tells the story of the birth of hip-hop with his own catchy rhythm, and Taylor's illustrations bring out the enthusiasm and sense of community at the heart of this trend-setting sound. ONLINE A slide show of this week's illustrated books at nytimes.com/books.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 22, 2013]
Review by School Library Journal Review
Baby/Toddler-This tender pair should make lovely bedtime additions. Gentle verses describe the sleeping and singing habits of various animals. Each of the illustrations contains the name of the animal in question. Soft and sweet yet beautifully textured, the images are lovely and will have readers poring over them. © 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
Short singsongy verses about Pacific Northwest animals are paired with dramatic illustrations that, while evocatively depicting each animal in its habitat, are often rough or murky. Many rhymes don't scan effectively, and the presentation would benefit from more information about its subjects. A well-intentioned but slight ode to the region's sonorous wildlife. (c) Copyright 2014. 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 wolf's howl. A loon's haunting cry. What do they communicate? Seeing a title like Why Do I Sing? Animal Songs of the Pacific Northwest, readers might expect to discover the possible meanings of various animal sounds. Instead, the author dreamily imagines. A cricket's song, she posits, "is of summer and warmth everywhere." Each of the 14 Northwest creatures' vocalizations is described in a four-line stanza, including--oddly--the ever-silent starfish: "As the STARFISH are washed by the tide's ebb and flow, / They just might be singing a song we can't know. / We don't see or hear the world the same way / As so many living things near us each day." The poetry is often stumblingly cumbersome, as in the marmot stanza: "In wintertime MARMOTS sleep in dens under rock piles, / By summer, high peaks sound with their whistles, heard for miles." In a cozy denouement, humans sing around a campfire, "for joy." Gabriel's handsome, atmospheric watercolor paintings on textured paper capture scenic panoramas or zoom in to render animals larger than life, from honeybee to meadowlark. While this is a lovely visual tribute to Pacific Northwest animals, the stilted verse makes it a disappointing follow-up to the team's award-winning Where Do I Sleep? A Pacific Northwest Lullaby (2008). (Picture book/poetry. 2-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
