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SAMMY SPIDER'S NEW FRIEND

Name: SAMMY SPIDER'S NEW FRIEND
Author: Sylvia A. Rouss
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6663-8

From the Sammy Spider series

by Sylvia A. Rouss & illustrated by Katherine Janus Kahn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2012

This is a book without conflict, and that’s the last thing a child needs.

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Sammy Spider is perfectly safe.

Maybe you’re a parent. Your child is asleep in the next room, and you’re watching the news. War has broken out in the Middle East. Senators are screaming about the budget. There’s a pile of picture books nearby. You want to give your child a story with no conflict at all. You open up this latest in the Sammy Spider series. A boy is crying. He has no friends at his new house. But two pages later, the boy next door brings him cake. They play baseball. They take turns on the swing. Sammy spins a web to keep them entertained. You think: No one could object to this book. It even teaches vocabulary, like the Hebrew word akavish, which means spider, and the English word “hospitality.” And you think: Did I really make friends that quickly when I was a child? Maybe you did. But you start thinking about the books you loved back then. Max had to tame monsters. The Cat in the Hat nearly destroyed a house. And suddenly, the boys on their swing seem a little dull. You look for a book about pirates, in case your child wakes up in the middle of the night.

This is a book without conflict, and that’s the last thing a child needs. (Picture book. 2-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7613-6663-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Kar-Ben

Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
SAMMY SPIDER'S FIRST WEDDING
by Sylvia A. Rouss ; illustrated by Katherine Janus Kahn

- BOOK REVIEW
SAMMY SPIDER'S FIRST TASTE OF HANUKKAH
by Sylvia A. Rouss & Genene Levy Turndorf ; illustrated by Katherine Janus Kahn

- BOOK REVIEW
A WATERMELON IN THE SUKKAH
by Sylvia A. Rouss ; Shannan Rouss ; illustrated by Ann Iosa

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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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)