Catching Kisses

by Amy Gibson, Maria van Lieshout (Illustrator)

Overview

At any given moment/someone, somewhere
is blowing a kiss.
And somewhere/someone/is catching it.

So begins this journey of the heart, as readers young and old follow a handful of kisses around the United States. From San Francisco to New Orleans to New York City, the text and stylized artwork celebrate all the ways kisses are shared.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466855984
Publisher:	Feiwel & Friends
Publication date:	12/31/2013
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Amy Gibson is the author of Around the World on Eighty Legs: Animal Poems, published by Scholastic. She lives in Northern California with her husband and three children.

Maria van Lieshout was born and raised near Amsterdam, where she spent many weekends in the Museum Quarter row house where her grandparents lived with her artist aunt and metalsmith uncle. Drawing while her aunt painted, and pecking stories on a typewriter while her uncle soldered metals inspired her love for drawing, creating and writing. After high school in Leiden, Maria studied Visual Communications at GWU in DC, and worked in design and innovation at Coca-Cola. In 2000, Maria became illustrator full-time. She has illustrated/written 15 picture books. Song of a Blackbird is Maria’s first graphic novel.

Editorial Reviews

Children love kisses: the way they sound, how they feel, and the emotion they evoke. They are particularly fascinated by the imagined trajectory and landing of a blown kiss. Gibson captures all that and more in rhythmic, evocative phrases that describe kisses sailing, smelling of ginger and cinnamon, feeling as velvet as peach fuzz, and smacking like bubble gum. Van Lieshout's digital art replicates woodblock prints and takes readers from urban, suburban, forest, and waterfront settings across the land of opportunity, striking a patriotic note…adults will still appreciate the sentiment, while youngsters will eagerly await the kisses the book is sure to engender.” —Booklist

“What starts out as a celebration of affection turns out to be a paean to life in the United States, and the message is clear: in almost every kind of place you can think of, people are expressing love for each other.” —Publishers Weekly

“Elegant, ambitious.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2013-10-01
Graphic art using bold shapes and colorful silhouettes makes an admirable attempt to illustrate a kiss and show the many places throughout the United States that kisses can come from and travel to in this ephemeral title. Gibson's prose dances along the pages, encouraging readers to imagine the smells, sounds, textures and trajectories of kisses: "At any given moment, someone, somewhere, is blowing a kiss. / And somewhere, someone is catching it." Van Lieshout does her best to create spreads that provide a visual context for the rather abstract concepts introduced in the text. Although a blown kiss is invisible, readers see airborne dandelion fluff in various sizes and colors float across each page, zigzagging through New York City traffic or, oddly, swirling by two affectionate deer in a wintry scene. Only some children but most adults will recognize the landmarks portrayed, including Times Square, Washington, D.C., St. Louis and New Orleans. A map at the end of the book helpfully shows the cities featured. This title can be used as a springboard for discussion about visualizing things that are quite real but unseen. While younger readers may balk at thinking of a kiss as something that can be hidden in a pocket or tucked in a book, most can relate to kisses that "SMACK! like bubblegum" or "whisper like butterflies." Overall, an elegant, ambitious effort. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews