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TINY PIE

Name: TINY PIE
Author: Mark Bailey
ISBN: 978-0-7624-4482-3

by Mark Bailey ; Michael Oatman ; illustrated by Edward Hemingway ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2013

A muddle.

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Ellie the elephant learns to make a tiny apple pie.

Ellie is brushed off during a “grown-up party,” but instead of going to bed, she makes an amazing discovery. Inside the little mouse hole is a TV studio where a mouse chef is teaching the audience to make a tiny apple pie. To rhyming couplets, Ellie learns about mixing and rolling out dough, chopping apples and seasoning the pies. It took four people to create this confusing concoction: two writers, one illustrator and chef Alice Waters, whose Edible Schoolyard Project is to receive a portion of the proceeds from sales of this book. Busy, bright illustrations show an array of animals wearing everything from tuxedos to evening dresses to a chef’s coat. Children will empathize when Ellie is left out of the adult party because she is too little, but the transition from her view through the mouse hole to what appears to be a dream sequence is far harder to gauge. Also, the story starts at bedtime but ends with mom and dad discovering her snoozing on the floor in front of the mouse hole and then making pie with Ellie. What happened to her sleep or to their party? Another quibble: The pies shown in the kitchen scenes and on the recipe page are two-crust pies, while Waters’ recipe is for a never-pictured turnover. The recipe is lengthy and complicated.

A muddle. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: May 7, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-7624-4482-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Running Press

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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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)

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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RUBY FINDS A WORRY

From the Big Bright Feelings series

by Tom Percival ; illustrated by Tom Percival ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2019

A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their...

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Ruby is an adventurous and happy child until the day she discovers a Worry.

Ruby barely sees the Worry—depicted as a blob of yellow with a frowny unibrow—at first, but as it hovers, the more she notices it and the larger it grows. The longer Ruby is affected by this Worry, the fewer colors appear on the page. Though she tries not to pay attention to the Worry, which no one else can see, ignoring it prevents her from enjoying the things that she once loved. Her constant anxiety about the Worry causes the bright yellow blob to crowd Ruby’s everyday life, which by this point is nearly all washes of gray and white. But at the playground, Ruby sees a boy sitting on a bench with a growing sky-blue Worry of his own. When she invites the boy to talk, his Worry begins to shrink—and when Ruby talks about her own Worry, it also grows smaller. By the book’s conclusion, Ruby learns to control her Worry by talking about what worries her, a priceless lesson for any child—or adult—conveyed in a beautifully child-friendly manner. Ruby presents black, with hair in cornrows and two big afro-puff pigtails, while the boy has pale skin and spiky black hair.

A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their feelings (. (Picture book. 4-6)