I Had a Favorite Dress

August 8, 2011
In a spunky story about adjusting to change with creativity and style, a young fashionista loves her salmon-pink dress with its striped bodice and ruffles, wearing it every Tuesday, her favorite day of the week. But one day, the dress is too short, so Mama, dressed in her own boho-stylish clothes, works some refashioning magic, "And snip, snip, sew, sew... New shirt, hello!" When the sleeves get too tight, Mama turns it into a tank top and later a skirt, which the girl wears every Friday, her new favorite dayâfor the moment. Readers should enjoy the beloved dress's transitions (including incarnations as a scarf and a pair of socks), which are vibrantly conveyed through Denos's (Dotty) mixed-media collages composed of hip colors, jazzy patterns, and delicate pencilwork. Ashburn's (Over at the Castle) prose is shot through with loose internal rhymes ("And my new cool-for-school skirt looked just right with my favorite tights! I wore it one Friday and it felt just right"), giving the story a buoyancy to match its heroine. Tailor-made, so to speak, for the Etsy generation of DIY enthusiasts. Ages 4â6.

July 15, 2011

A sprightly, modernized and girly version of the Jewish folktale "The Tailor," which also formed the foundation of Simms Taback's Caldecott-winning Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.

An unnamed girl recounts how every Tuesday, her favorite day, she wears her "favoritest" dress. Until the day she finds her dress is too short! Mama says, "Don't make mountains out of molehills, make molehills out of mountains." Snip, snip, the dress becomes a new ruffly shirt to wear on Wednesday. When the shirt becomes too tight in the sleeves, snip, snip, it becomes a breezy tank top, then a cool skirt, then a tassely scarf, a pair of socks and a pretty hair bow, finally ending up as scraps and bits. Heeding her mother's advice, she turns the snippets into a piece of art that she can enjoy year-round. The digitally collaged mixed-media illustrations of watercolors, graphite, colored pencil and needle and thread are what give the story its bounce and flounce. Breezy in style, they smartly stitch each scene of alteration as the not-so-little girl sashays through the days of the week and the seasons.

A charming interpretation of an old story that will speak to young fashionistas. (Picture book. 4-8) 

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2011

K-Gr 2-When the unnamed narrator's favorite dress is suddenly a size too small, she is not a happy camper; she wears that dress every Tuesday, which is her favorite day of the week. Then her mother transforms the too-small dress into the perfect shirt. As the child's favorite day of the week changes so does her garment as she grows out of it. It becomes a tank top (no tank tops allowed in school), a skirt (skirts are out), a scarf (gets stuck in a door), socks (one lost), a hair bow (chewed up by puppy), and, finally, a picture of the original dress by the narrator herself. Through all these transformations, the youngster learns that change doesn't mean the end-just something new. As her mother likes to say, "Make molehills out of mountains." Some of Ashburn's text is playfully placed in and around the art to good effect. A variety of font styles is used, including cursive, bold, and italics, and the word "sew" is actually depicted with stitches. Denos's multimedia illustrations, a combination of collages, watercolors, and graphite and colored pencil artwork, reinforce the narrator's vibrant personality and the amazing transformations of the dress while capturing the action and emotion of the story. This book is sure to capture the imaginations of would-be seamstresses; children who can't bear to part with a favorite item; and those who want to reduce, reuse, recycle.-Catherine Callegari, Gay-Kimball Library, Troy, NH

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.