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SPEAK UP, TOMMY!

Name: SPEAK UP, TOMMY!
Author: Jacqueline Dembar Greene
ISBN: 978-0-7613-7497-8

by Jacqueline Dembar Greene & illustrated by Deborah Melmon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2012

The story ends on a perfect note of triumph, but it might be a better book if it were a touch less perfect.

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There are no easy victories in life, but no one has told the author. Dogs talk all the time in children’s books, but they hardly ever speak a foreign language. Samson is a police dog who doesn’t obey. He was trained in Israel, where all the commands were given in Hebrew. In the United States, everyone talks to him in English—except for one boy named Tommy. “In Israel,” Greene writes, “his name was Tomer, which means ‘palm tree.’…Now it was easier to be Tommy.” Whenever he speaks up, the other students snicker and tell him he talks funny. You already know what will happen next: Samson will refuse to stop barking. Tommy will calm him down with a word or two of Hebrew. The other kids will stop laughing. The problem is that these things happen all at once. The instant the dog quiets down, a student is saying, “Maybe you could teach us Hebrew.” This story is, of course, a fable about being yourself, but it doesn’t need to move at the speed of a fable. Everything in the book is plausible—it’s based on a true story, according to the author's note—but at this pace it feels about as real as a talking dog.

The story ends on a perfect note of triumph, but it might be a better book if it were a touch less perfect. (English/Hebrew dog commands) (Picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7613-7497-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Kar-Ben

Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)