Not exactly groundbreaking, but still a sweet and timeless lesson.
A boy leaves home to find the answer to the age-old question, “What is love?”
In this homey parable told in first person, an unnamed narrator asks his grandmother what love is, but instead of answering, she encourages him to go out into the world to find the answer. What follows is an episodic meeting of characters incorporating a bracketed refrain. “What is love?” the boy asks each character he meets. Each one then likens love to something that is meaningful to their life: The fisherman believes that love is a fish, the actor insists that love is applause, the carpenter thinks it is a house, and so on. However, the literal-minded boy is unconvinced by each character’s arguments. Fish are slimy and taste bad, applause is ephemeral, and hammers are dangerous. The encounters all end the same way: “You do not understand,” each character sighs. It is not until he returns as a grown man back home to his grandmother that he finally does. Static watercolor illustrations accompany the tale, giving the impression of a collection of still lifes rather than an immersive journey. And while the simplicity works well with the folk feeling and dry humor of the storytelling, it may not be the most engaging for young readers. The lesson, however, is eternal. Both boy and grandmother have beige skin, the boy’s hair black and the grandmother’s gray; other characters met are racially diverse.
Not exactly groundbreaking, but still a sweet and timeless lesson. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7640-6
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
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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