A gentle celebration of family and togetherness across time.
In Copeland’s debut picture book, a young girl is cheered by thoughts of untold generations of her family who have loved their children.
Bella, who has light brown skin and reddish-brown hair, is sad because she hasn’t been invited to her friend Maggie’s party. Bella worries that she and Maggie are no longer “special together,” meaning that Bella herself might not be special. Her Mommy reminds her how much she and Bella’s Daddy love her, and how much Bella’s grandparents love her—even Grandma Louise, who died before Bella was born. This leads to talk of Bella’s eight great-grandparents, and 16 great-great-grandparents, and so on, escalating to a host of loving ancestors from all over the world. Bella is reassured: “That’s a lot of my people who love me, and a lot of people for me to love back.” Copeland effectively narrates the story primarily through naturalistic conversation, using blue text for Bella and green for Mommy. Rather than shying away from talk of difficult topics like death and dementia, this catalogue of loved ones actively embraces those who have died. This commemoration of lineage serves not only to soothe Bella’s doubts but also to recognize racial diversity, as the parenting lines stretch back to encompass what appears to be a multitude of histories and cultures. Lettis brings an upbeat, colorful illustration style that focusses on character and beautifully captures the many different physiognomies united here in familial love.
A gentle celebration of family and togetherness across time.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9798990827318
Page Count: 32
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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