In this Japanese import, a child imagines a fantastical mouse theater as a means of overcoming her piano-recital anxiety.
A glowering girl walks grimly forward on the title page, sheet music tucked under arm. Her red velvet dress, both celebratory and somber, reflects the duality of the occasion. As she repeats a calming mantra, she spies a “mouseling” doing the same. The latter invites the pixie-haired Momo—a young Japanese girl—to her mouse theater, where acrobats, dancers, and an orchestra perform. When it is the mouseling’s turn to go on stage, Momo graciously offers to accompany her on piano. As they fill the hall with music and joy, Momo realizes she has actually played at her own piano recital, and she stands to the audience’s applause. Using pencil, charcoal, and gouache, the artist uses a monochromatic palette to skillfully capture theatrical light and staging. Red and other, more-muted colors easily identify the protagonist and act as accents. As the fantasy world of mice and their performances is introduced, Miyakoshi’s artwork opens up into a lavish rendering of an exquisite mouse theater. Unfortunately, the visual density of the mouse world and the simplified interpretation of the human world—in particular the styling of Momo’s face—are not seamlessly merged. However, the beauty of the mice and their environment is a feast for the eyes.
A soothing, fanciful adventure for those fretting about an upcoming performance. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0257-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS
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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. 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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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 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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