Review - The Windy Day

The Windy Day
by Tony Sandoval
Date: 2019
Publisher: Lion Forge
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 33
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

A young girl sets out on her own to fly her kite and encounters a pirate cloud full of goblins looking to cause trouble. She is rescued by a big black wolf who scare the goblins away and stays to help her fly her kite as high as possible...

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I think something got lost in translation...

This is a very uneven sort of book. The pacing seems off, with some of the text not quite seeming to match some of the pictures. And there are two types of pictures: rough, sketchy ones that accompany the pages with text; and whimsical, detailed ones that are interspersed between the text pages. I much prefer the latter, even though I'm not sold on the illustrations overall. Half the time, the wolf looks more like a horse, the girl's kite just looks like a flying Band-Aid, and some of the pictures are downright terrifying. I'd think twice about reading this one to really young children.

The story is kind of weak, too. Where are these kids' parents? Why is the girl allowed to walk through the woods all by herself to go fly a kite in an empty field? She's drawn as quite young, so this just seems worrisome.

I like a few of the illustrations, but that's about it. The concept of the goblins in their pirate cloud is underused to the point where it's more annoying than intriguing. Goblins piloting a pirate cloud! How can you make that boring? Well, this book manages to do so.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lion Forge for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 2/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.33 out of 5