by Santi Balmes ; illustrated by Lyona ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2015
Dream or no, Martina's monster story makes for lovely storytelling. (Picture book. 4-8)
A young girl learns to fight her nighttime fears by conquering a mirror world of monsters—and a little pink monster learns to do the same.
Martina, ponytailed and blank-faced in striped pink-and-blue pajamas, worries every night that monsters just under the floor might drag her down into their world, "where she would have to learn to live upside down." After a pep talk from her father, Martina falls asleep and dreams of a little pink monster named Anitram who is just as scared of the human world as she is of the monsters’. Anitram's world is far from terrifying. The monsters are little horned fuzzballs with sharp but sparse teeth. Cleverly, text is placed upside down in the monster world, and scenes of Martina in bed are flipped to mirror Anitram in her bed. Blue and pink hues are reversed when the story moves from Martina's world to Anitram's. After Anitram is reassured by her own father, she falls asleep as well, leading to a beautiful moment when the two characters' hands meet through the imagined hole in the floor. Unfortunately, much of the story is presented as a dream of Martina's, which seems unnecessary; it would work just as well, and perhaps even more magically, without that extra layer of distance.
Dream or no, Martina's monster story makes for lovely storytelling. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8075-9056-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
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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...
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
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by Hoda Kotb ; illustrated by Chloe Dominique ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Pleasant enough but not particularly original.
Uplifting messages of positivity from the Today show anchor.
Hope springs eternal, so the saying goes. Kotb agrees, here delivering to children the cheery news that hope lives inside all of them and that whatever they might wish for can be theirs. All they need is a sunny outlook, and the possibilities for happy outcomes are virtually endless. Children’s dreams can be in-the-moment ones—like purple ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry—or more far-ranging ones, such as growing tall enough to reach that high shelf easily or for hair that’s long enough to braid. It doesn’t matter, the author reassures young readers. Your aspirations will be realized, so don’t give up on them—just keep believing in them and, most of all, in yourself. Throughout, Kotb calls hope a rainbow, a feeling, a gift, and a wish. Hope is “new friends you’ll find— / friends who are loving and funny and kind.” Hope is “practicing your heart out, letter by letter.” The book’s overarching theme is upbeat, but its bouncy rhyming text is clumsy. The child-appealing illustrations are colorful and lively, though they have a generic look. The cast of wide-eyed characters is racially diverse; some have visible disabilities.
Pleasant enough but not particularly original. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593624128
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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by Hoda Kotb ; illustrated by Suzie Mason
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