Boom Snot Twitty

Narrator Tavia Gilbert animates three unusual friends in a performance that is integrated seamlessly with accompanying music and sound effects. It isn't every day that a bear, a bird, and a snail share a friendship, and it isn't every day that a thunderstorm causes such uproar. Gilbert crafts a voice for each animal that is echoed in the signature music for each creature--a gentle boom for Boom, a high-pitched trill for Twitty, and an ever-changing melody for Snot. Gilbert narrates at a leisurely pace and provides long pauses for listeners to set each scene in their minds. While the storm itself can be appreciated from the audiobook, young listeners who have the accompanying print version in hand will find additional story details in the illustrations. A.R. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

March 17, 2014
This is a much subtler and gentler offering than Cronin’s (Click, Clack, Moo) previous picture books, making the illustrator behind The Quiet Book a fitting collaborator. The title names the story’s three characters: Boom is a restless, impulse-driven bear; Twitty, a robin, is a cautious homebody; and Snot the snail exists somewhere between them, a patient observer of her world who also grabs hold of adventure when it presents itself. As the three “ for the day to begin,” they quietly disagree about what to do. Twitty is content to crochet, Boom says, “Let’s go somewhere,” and a sudden storm makes the decision for them. Cronin deploys just enough text to hang a story on (“Boom ran. Yuck. Twitty hid. Yick. Snot floated back to her spot. WHEE!”) while Liwska fills in the emotional blanks, her now-familiar fuzzy-soft artwork communicating the threesome’s excitement, alarm, malaise, and contentment through their body language and features. The overall effect is that of three dissimilar yet compatible friends who are so comfortable in each other’s company that they barely need to communicate. Ages 3–5. Agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties.