This volume, though not an essential purchase, will likely be useful for school counselors who want to recommend titles to...
A girl discovers that worry can be a good thing—as long as you don’t let it control you—in this installment of the Building Resilience series by Australian author-illustrator Harmony (The Cat’s Got My Tongue, 2015, etc.).
Sal has a pet monster that makes her worry about everything, including the dark, being laughed at, getting hurt or sick, and losing her parents’ love when she misbehaves. The young girl is afraid of ghosts, storms, and even loneliness, but she realizes that all this worrying makes her feel sick and upset. When she confesses her feelings to her mother, Mum gives her one of her old friends as a companion: a knight named Brave. With Brave by her side, Sal learns how to confront her fears and not let her worry get the best of her. Harmony introduces a rare concept for a children’s book: that Brave and Worry aren’t enemies, but a team: “Worry tries to keep me safe from harm, / But Brave will tell me when to truly listen to the alarm.” The rhymes are sometimes a bit off (“Worry”/”wary”; “Worry”/”sorry”; “pals”/”tails”), and the rhythm isn’t always consistent (“Brave followed me around from that day on. / Worry is there but Brave makes me feel like a light shone, / In my dark bedroom / that I thought was doom”). But the concepts here will be very familiar to young readers, and learning a coping mechanism to address one’s fears is valuable. Worry hides on every page of this book, even after Brave shows up, and his tentacles will be a delight for young readers to find. They also work as a metaphor: the tentacles never grab Sal in a frightening way, but the idea that worries can wrap themselves tightly around a person will be clear. Activities at the end of the book encourage children to draw their own version of the Worry monster, and a page for parents offers tips on how to comfort a child overtaken by worry.
This volume, though not an essential purchase, will likely be useful for school counselors who want to recommend titles to youngsters struggling with anxiety.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-925420-02-9
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Prosperous Alliance Enterprise Pty Ltd
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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