With the right listener, every story feels urgent. This book makes every reader a listener.
Telling someone your story is a little like describing a dream.
“When I was a child, / my own story / made me very sad,” the narrator says, early in this picture book. At first, he has trouble finding anyone to listen to him; he keeps warning people, “I might cry when I tell it.” But the old woman who tells stories in his village turns out to be a very good listener. His story is both very sad and very simple: He is short. “I don’t like ME!” he explains, and adds, “I can’t tell my mother or father or anyone in my family because they don’t mind being short.” His story feels, like many dreams, both a little anticlimactic and like the most important thing in the world. The climax may affect readers not when they first read it but later, when they’ve had time to think about it. The narrator comes to realize, movingly, that, like the members of his family, he can be “brave and strong and kind.” The illustrations are haunting, a surprising combination of line drawings and painterly backgrounds. They look like chalk pictures, if chalk could draw on the water or the night sky. The main characters are all light-skinned, but the background characters have a wider variety of skin tones. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-16-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
With the right listener, every story feels urgent. This book makes every reader a listener. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4338-3688-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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
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