Nina CrewsCritiques

IRL: Kindergarten
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (Picture Books – 2022)

This highly creative book is set in Brooklyn, NY with the play time of neighborhood children. Multicultural, the images are not illustrations as I think of them, rather this is composed of photographs of children playing with the background of Mother Goose rhymes. Not all the rhymes seemed to match the photos.

I obtained it from my local library because it seemed very unique.½

Tana Hoban and Nina Crews make some of my favorite children's books using photography. Just something about them perfectly captures Brooklyn (NYC) life from a child's point of view. I always feel like I'm 6 years-old when I gaze at the pictures in their books. I love seeing myself reflected back in a familiar scenairo.

Two boys play with this "Guy" toy everyday and one day they make him skydive. They lose him in a tree and the older one is devastated. He has to figure out how to get the toy out of the tree by himself. Him and his brother put their brains together and get the toy out of the tree.
Age 5-6
Source: Lacey Timberland Regional Library

This book seems to be based on a day in the life of the author with her children. I enjoyed the real photography in the book. Starts the book with the word "day"
and then contrasts words throughout the book until it ends with "Night", I didn't find this book engaging or interesting; however, I did like how it showed contrast and the words that contrast different things. This book is meant to read to children 2-4 years of age. I didn't find this book to be too enjoyable, but I did like the concept of the book.

This book is a new version from the original. There's a young boy named Jack during work for his neighbor after school. Jack was paid with multicolored beans. Jack didn't understand why he wasn't getting money. Jack planted the beans he received and woke up the next day with a giant beanstalk outside of his window. Being curious like any other child, Jack started climbing the beanstalk. Jack climb so far up, he saw over his entire city. I can say I definitely wouldn't have gone that far because I'm afraid of heights. That took a lot of bravery for this young kid to do this. Jack kept going unto he reach the top of the beanstalk and saw a big castle. Jack wanted Cookies and he stumbled upon two giants which were a husband and wife. The Giants caught Jack and made him do chores. Jack hated during chores and waited till the wife left and took the Giant's hen which laid golden eggs. The Giants realize Jack stole their hen and followed Jack down the beanstalk not knowing Jack was cutting the beanstalk. The Giants fell to the Ground and they were not giants anymore. Jack was surprised at how their size completely change. Jack neighbor who he was working for came and hugged the man who was a giant and clearly stated that she knew Jack would be the one to get her brother home and he did just that. The man tells Jack how he ended up in the clouds which he got there by making a wish that he can be the biggest and most wealthiest man in the world, so that's what got him and his wife up there. This man wanted to be the wealthiest man but no one but his wife and him was the only one's who knew it. To me thats, not wealth if you can't even share it when the ones you love or care about.

Nina Crews seems to have based her style from her father, Donald Crews, writing with short sentences and illustrating with simple photographs that lead the reader to use their imagination to engage the reader. Nina Crews seems to have a good relationship with the Rader family, using the two children as the characters in her books and always thanking the Rader family and Amy Crews for their encouragement and participation. I could not find the relationship that amy crews shares with either Donald Crews or Nina Crews, but Nina Crews seems to receive a lot of encouragement from Amy Crews and Todd Rader, an architecture firm from the area where Nina Crews lives in New York.½

Nina Crews is the daughter of Donald Crews and, like her father, she both writes and illustrates her own books. Also similar to her father, Nina Crews bases the stories from her books off of everyday events, but allows the readers' imagination to sprout through the story turning these everyday events into wondrous adventures. Nina Crews separates her style from her father, however, when referencing her form of illustration. Where Donald Crews uses drawn and painted illustrations for the pictures, his daughter seems to favor using photographs to help tell her stories. Nina Crews shares a similar writing style to her father as well, using short, simple sentences to allow for the reader to use their imagination to fill in the gaps based on the pictures. The apple clearly didn't fall far from the tree in the case of Nina Crews and her father, Donald Crews, two authors who really seem to encourage young readers' to use their imaginations.½

Opposites can be a difficult concept to teach to young children. This book helps to explain opposites through photographs in a day in the life of a family, a mother and her two children. From day to night, their activities are filled with opposites galore! A single word to accompany each photograph makes the book simple yet informative on opposite concepts.½

The little girl in the book shows all the things she does on hot summer days. She draws pictures in the shade and eats popsicles. At one point it starts to rain and she starts splashing and singing while cooling off. This book is has realistic pictures and we know how hot it getting Louisiana so children could probably relate to it.½

This book is about a little girl outside on a hot summer day playing. She soon realizes that it's too hot to play in the sand box and on the swings. This book is great to read during the summer time to children ages pre-k-first grade.

The only problem with this book is that they have a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a Mother Goose Rhyme. That really bothers me. "There was a little girl . . ."

Oh I wish I had the kind of imagination these girls have. Share this with your little one and see if you can spark a creative sense of adventure!

Jack and Gus are two brothers play pretend adventures with their toys. They do many exciting things and one day while throwing their home made parachute guy in the air, he gets caught in the tree. The boys discuss their options and problem solve how to get the toy parachute guy down from the tree by themselves. They work together to solve their problem.
Age 3-6
Source: Pierce County Library

Nina Crew's Below follows a young boy named Jack who loses his favorite action figure, Guy, when he falls down a hole in the stairs. I loved the idea for this book, as I remember having a couple of action figures when I was a kid that meant the world to me and that I would also go on all sorts of imaginative adventures with. I would have to believe that any kid could relate to the story being told here. I think that it's important to find books for young readers that they can relate too, and I think that Crews has found a great topic for this.

I LOVED this book. This is a great wordless pictures book, especially for English Learners. One of the reasons i loved this book is because it lets kids use their imagination and imagine climbing to the moon on a latter or jumping on it in space. Another reason I love this book is because it bring it other topics and new words, especially for English Learners. For instance the astronaut on the moon, the cow jumping over the moon, and the silver shining quarter looks just like the moon. I think the message of the story is for kids to use their imagination and think about something that you can see but not touch or be near.

A collection of Mother Goose rhymes illustrated with color photographs of primarily African-American children depicting the characters of the rhymes. Spirited and fun presentation.

This book is great for teaching rhymes.

48 months - There are so many amazingly illustrated Mother Goose versions out there I don't think this one was particularly special in any way.

This book is fantastic because the photos are so culturally and racially diverse. There is every kind of child you can imagine pictured on these pages. I would definitely use this as a parent because it would help my child get used to a more diverse collection of people. And of course the rhymes are classic!

Nina Crews puts a new twist on original Mother Goose poetry. The poems themselves are not altered but what makes it unique is that the illustrations are set in modern-day Brooklyn. The fanciful photographic collages of energetic children outside parks, shoe stores, and markets provide a backdrop to the verses, and it works: the pulse of urban life and the movement of the children accentuates the rhythmic qualities of the rhymes and breathes new life into them.

I enjoyed this modern day spin on the classic Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale. I liked that the plot was very similar to the fairy tale but was slightly modernized. This made it easier to connect to. I liked how Jack could view the entire city from the top of the beanstalk. I realized how high up Jack was because he was looking down on the city houses.
I would have liked the book more if the author spent more time developing the characters in the story. I wish the text would have included more background on Mrs. M. She was only mentioned in the beginning of the text as being the woman Jack worked for and she gave him the beans. By the time she was referenced again at the end of the story I had forgotten who she was.
The main idea of this text is to create a modern version of the classic fairy tale.

I liked the book “The Neighborhood Mother Goose”. One aspect I liked was the writing. The writing flowed very well. One way the writing flowed well together was because of how it rhymed. “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, and so are you.” I enjoyed reading each of the poems in the story. Another aspect I enjoyed was the illustrations. I like how the illustrations were real life people. In most books the pictures are drawn and colored. I think that because the pictures are real-life people that children can relate to them more. The big idea of this story is to teach children nursery rhymes.

I didn’t like this version of the story very much. In this version, the boy cuts the beanstalk down and the giant turns back into a normal man and thanks Jack. I found this to be a little boring. However, the pictures in this book were a lot different from any other Jack and the Beanstalk I have read. The pictures in this book are actual photos, which make the story a little more life-like. In one picture, it shows the sky view of a city while Jack is climbing the beanstalk. The message of this book is to be brave.

Summary: It is a hot summer day, and a young girl plays different activities outside. She tries to fry an egg on the ground outside, plays with her shadow, eats popsicles, and then realizes it is "too hot to play on the swings or sand box." Then a big storm comes, and she is excited to play in the rain. Once the storm passes, it is a hot summer day again.

The central message of this book is to enjoy being outside in the fresh air. I did not particularly like this book, because it is very vague. There were only a few words on each page, and I don't think anything happened in the story that children would get excited about. Although, the illustrations were different, because they were pictures of real life objects and people that were formed into a collage.½