A fun reminder to be open to friendship.
A girl throws a tea party and ends up with more guests than she expected.
New in town, Agnes sets out to make friends by inviting some girls from her class to a tea party. She stipulates on the invitation that everyone should bring a “plus one.” After Agnes accidentally drops one of the invitations on the ground at school, a kid named Dave picks it up. When no one except Dave shows up to her house, Agnes turns him away with the excuse that he didn’t bring a plus one; in reality, she doesn’t want “this strange kid” at her party. Undeterred, Dave gets creative and cheerfully knocks on the door multiple times with a lineup of different “plus ones,” including a goose, a snake, and even his own mother. Each time, Agnes rejects Dave and his guests for different reasons, but eventually she realizes that she’s alone at her own party. Agnes observes Dave having fun with his “unusual group of friends” outside and asks to join them. But then, Agnes’ guests show up. Will she ditch Dave? No! Agnes invites the entire group (including the goose) inside for tea. Hare’s vibrant illustrations complement this sweet and silly story that makes clear that sometimes we can find friends in unexpected places. His wide-eyed, expressive, cartoonish characters effectively convey a range of emotions—from frustration to excitement—with humor. Agnes is tan-skinned, Dave is light-skinned, and the (human) party guests are racially diverse.
A fun reminder to be open to friendship. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780823450435
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
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)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As insubstantial as hot air.
A diverse cast of children first makes a fleet of hot air balloons and then takes to the sky in them.
Lifestyle maven Gaines uses this activity as a platform to celebrate diversity in learning and working styles. Some people like to work together; others prefer a solo process. Some take pains to plan extensively; others know exactly what they want and jump right in. Some apply science; others demonstrate artistic prowess. But “see how beautiful it can be when / our differences share the same sky?” Double-page spreads leading up to this moment of liftoff are laid out such that rhyming abcb quatrains typically contain one or two opposing concepts: “Some of us are teachers / and share what we know. / But all of us are learners. / Together is how we grow!” In the accompanying illustration, a bespectacled, Asian-presenting child at a blackboard lectures the other children on “balloon safety.” Gaines’ text has the ring of sincerity, but the sentiment is hardly an original one, and her verse frequently sacrifices scansion for rhyme. Sometimes it abandons both: “We may not look / or work or think the same, / but we all have an / important part to play.” Swaney’s delicate, pastel-hued illustrations do little to expand on the text, but they are pretty. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.2-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 70.7% of actual size.)
As insubstantial as hot air. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4003-1423-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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