Written poetically by Swain and illustrated charmingly by Bonita, this is a somewhat fanciful and quite short story of a bee's day, from waking up to heading out to play and then getting down to work of gathering pollen, but first the hive must be defended from an overly inquisitive dog!
The story is playful and entertaining, and colorful. Before this, the author was batting a .66 with me, but he's now edged up to a .75, because I liked this book and commend it as a worthy read.
Illustrated by Iuliana Iordaschescu (no website found).
Well I'm not sure about the title of this story, but I can't argue with the quality of it and the brilliant colors of the absorbing illustrations conceived by the exotically and amazingly-named Iuliana Iordaschescu.
I did come across one error on page three of the book, where the term "it's" is used. That's a contraction of "it is", which is wrong in this case. It should be "its" with no apostrophe, indicating a beat which belongs to the blue ball. This is, unfortunately, a common error. People tend to add apostrophes where none are needed and omit them where they're required. It's easy to avoid if you 'uncontract' the word and see if it still fits when employed as "it is".
One thing I very much appreciated was the large and simple text. This is for young children, some of whom might be learning to read, and the large and simple text is invaluable. It's also, incidentally, useful for grandparents whose eyesight may be somewhat poorer than average, and who will, I'm sure, appreciate the ready legibility of the text when they come to read it to their grand kids. It's refreshing to find a writer like DC Swain who evidently thinks of these things, and it's especially nice if you're reading this on a so-called smartphone.
This children's story is interesting in that it features no children! All we see is the ball, determinedly and unstoppably bouncing its way into oblivion. That ball has ambition and has no business appearing blue. What's to be sad about? The ball, in my humble opinion, deserved to be red, just as this story deserves to be read.
I found that the highly whimsical nature of the story is what made it most appealing. Typically I look for educational content in children's books, and failing that, I look for something to stir the imagination of the child, some novelty, something of interest, some good fun, or something like those things, to make the story stand out.
This one managed it by how wild and crazy it was, by its uncluttered nature, and by that feisty ball, which to me had a character all of its own as it bounced its way confidently down the high street and out of town on its way to who knows where? Maybe we'll find out in the sequel: Spaceballs? Oh wait, wrong movie! I recommend this story for sheer fun and originality.
In terms of book presentation, I have to add a note about distortions in proportions - of the book layout in the so-called smart phone Kindle app. This is probably a technical issue, but when you read this things in ebook from, they tend to bear little relationship to the print form. Even when the page is an image, as it is in this case, there are issues. You will no doubt note from the images here how the ball is distorted? This was from trying to render the page in the square format of the original book! Clearly the images are differently proportioned on my phone, because when I make them square, the ball isn't a sphere (and neither is the sun in the other review. Of course the sun actually isn't a sphere anyway - not a pure one - but that's by-the-by). This is something which is worth keeping in mind both as a writer and as a reader.
Illustrated by Iuliana Iordaschescu (no website found).
Today is evidently DC Swain day on my blog as I review two children's books both by the same author and artist. This is another fun story from DC Swain, and once again it's admirably-illustrated by the wonderfully-named Iuliana Iordaschescu, but this time the illustrations are in a different style, which I found refreshing. In this case they look like they're done with colorful crayons, which is a fun way to make the pictures look, for a kid's story. In the other book I review today, the images are all smooth colors with the look of fresh paint.
I think children's stories which ask a question in the title are some of the most stimulating because they immediately make a child think. What is the answer? How high will that kite fly? What happens if you let go of the string? In Austin, Texas, there's an annual kite-flying weekend in a park down town, and even if you're not into kites (and expensive bad food and watery sodas), it makes for an interesting and fun couple of hours. Kids delight in it, of course.
In this case, unlike in the blue ball story, we actually get children putting in an appearance. The girl flying the kite bravely lets it loose and it soars, flying over her school, over the bridge, over the mountains, and out to sea. Where will it end up? I think this is the kite which scared the people on the Mary Celeste so badly that they abandoned ship, thereby creating a mystery! What does your kid think happened to the kite?
The beauty of these books is that they really don't end when the book does, because the question goes on. That kite, just like that bouncing ball in the other story, is out there somewhere, and you can have a lot of fun with your kids in speculation over where it might have gone or what it's doing now. My guess is that it ultimately ended up in the rings around Saturn, blown there by solar winds along with odd socks and lost luggage, but it's only a guess, understand....
I recommend this book.
Today is spotty day! I review two books by two authors, and I'm afraid I didn't find either of them worthy!
I try to lower the bar with children's books - not in quality, but in what I'm willing let writers get away with. Even so, there is a limit to trying to be generous and understanding, and to support new authors. I like children's books to look like they're offering something - preferably something educational or at least a lot of fun. I can't claim any of that for this very short book which is indifferently illustrated. Children are precious and they deserve the very best we can give them whether it be attention, education, love, or books, and when I feel that they're being short-changed, I have to rebel against it!
The first problem was the complete disconnect between the book title and the book content! This was not a story about how Oakley lost his spots! It's about what he did when he realized they were missing. His spots never were actually lost: he never had them to begin with! Oakley is a Dalmatian. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't know what a Dalmatian looks like, but in Oakley's case, he's spotless - literally. He's all white without a hint of the usually patterning. It's not that the design effort was spotty - it's that there aren't any spots at all, unlike the rest of his kin.
Dalmatians, named after an historical region in Croatia, are actually born white and their spots appear around three weeks of age - a bit earlier than Oakley evidently gets his. They can be black or russet. These dogs, like all so-called pure-bred dogs, all-too-often have health problems. In the case of Dalmatians, it's Hyperuricemia, and they need a specially-controlled diet to avoid debilitating problems. About 30% of Dalmatians also suffer deafness, something the idiot breeders didn't realize to begin with - they just thought the dogs were stupid. Human arrogance strikes again! My advice is to get thee to a muttery and adopt something with a good mixed gene pool!
But I digress! There are so many ways this story could have gone from here. It's a crying shame that it went to the dogs. It could have turned out, for example, that Oakley's spots were actually there all along - but they were white! That would have been a riot and quite inventive. It could have turned out that they got stuck on something he'd rolled around in. He could have just dropped them while out playing, or shaken them off after a swim, which could have led to a treasure hunt for his own spots! He could have earned his spots like medals for some heroic act. None of this happens.
There is a token attempt, on one page, to address where I had been thinking this story would go: that of the misfit child, but after a brief mention on one page, it's forgotten. What a wasted opportunity! This book could have been aimed at helping children to fit in, and helping them to understand that they can help others with this, but that disintegrated. Another avenue: that of using this to talk about racism, failed to get unleashed.
Instead, all we got was some whining, three pages of Oakley looking in oddball places for his spots, like he'd lost them - which he hadn't and which doesn't speak well of his smarts (or his persistence for that matter). There are some pages where he tries to fake his spots, but he soon gives up and goes to bed. Magically, in the morning, the spots have appeared. I'm sorry. I know that this was someone's bright idea and effort, and I wish them all the best in their future efforts, but this was just barking up the wrong tree in my opinion, and while I can't claim it got my hackles up, I did feel rather dog-eared afterwards.