A fun winter story that celebrates the novelty of snow.
In this charming winter tale, an Israeli girl dreams of seeing snow and her father works to make her dream reality.
Pnina lives in the city of Beit Shemesh, Israel. Her father grew up in Canada, and Pnina wishes she could build a snowman like he did in his youth. When she asks why it doesn’t snow in Israel, he tells her that it does, but only in Jerusalem. It’s only about a half-hour drive from Pnina’s house to her grandparents’ Jerusalem home, so Pnina wonders why it doesn’t snow in both places. But she trusts her Abba to tell her the truth, even if her best friend, Chana Leah, is skeptical about the idea. Eventually, her father wakes her up in the middle of the night and piles the whole family into their van. When they arrive in Jerusalem, the sky is full of snowflakes. Pnina waxes poetic about the snow’s appearance: “You won’t believe that it fell like stardust, sparkled and fell in impossibly big flakes that night against my face. You will have to see it with your own eyes.” And if there isn’t enough for a snowman, she doesn’t have to tell Chana Leah that! Zevy’s story offers a sweet slice-of-life story. The vocabulary makes it best geared toward independent readers at the chapter-book level, and Pnina’s voice may feel familiar to readers of kid-lit heroes such as Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones or Debbi Michiko Florence’s Jasmine Toguchi. Zevy introduces Hebrew and Yiddish words into the text without explanation, though a few are included in the end glossary with definitions that make no distinction between the languages. (Pnina, when explaining meshugahin the text, just says it’s “Jewish for crazy.”) Some jokes may sail over the head of some youngsters, such as a reference to Pat Sajak and Wheel ofFortune. Tan’s textured, full-color cartoon illustrations have an almost cut-paper feel, especially when featuring snowflakes.
A fun winter story that celebrates the novelty of snow.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2023
ISBN: 978-1778201776
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Tumbleweed Press
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not enough tricks to make this a treat.
Another holiday title (How To Catch the Easter Bunny by Adam Wallace, illustrated by Elkerton, 2017) sticks to the popular series’ formula.
Rhyming four-line verses describe seven intrepid trick-or-treaters’ efforts to capture the witch haunting their Halloween. Rhyming roadblocks with toolbox is an acceptable stretch, but too often too many words or syllables in the lines throw off the cadence. Children familiar with earlier titles will recognize the traps set by the costume-clad kids—a pulley and box snare, a “Tunnel of Tricks.” Eventually they accept her invitation to “floss, bump, and boogie,” concluding “the dance party had hit the finale at last, / each dancing monster started to cheer! / There’s no doubt about it, we have to admit: / This witch threw the party of the year!” The kids are diverse, and their costumes are fanciful rather than scary—a unicorn, a dragon, a scarecrow, a red-haired child in a lab coat and bow tie, a wizard, and two space creatures. The monsters, goblins, ghosts, and jack-o'-lanterns, backgrounded by a turquoise and purple night sky, are sufficiently eerie. Still, there isn’t enough originality here to entice any but the most ardent fans of Halloween or the series. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Not enough tricks to make this a treat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72821-035-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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