A first-day-of-school story steeped in vibrant imagery.
Isabel is anxious about her first day at Honeytree Elementary. Isabel speaks Spanish and doesn’t understand much English—she is scared of everything that could go wrong. Mami encourages her to be brave, and Isabel joins the class even though the swirl of language in her new classroom sounds harsh to her ears. Isabel compares the sound of English to the cold and stormy hues of her blue and white crayons, and Spanish to the more inviting pinks, yellows, and purples. A friendly student welcomes Isabel, but they have a hard time connecting across their language differences. Coloring time brings Isabel comfort and the realization that she might have a strategy for talking to her new friend that doesn’t require language at all. Isabel finds hope, and the English that surrounds her begins to sound less intimidating. Spanish words punctuate the English narrative throughout, and the full text of the story in Spanish is included on each page in a bright box. True to the title of the book, the pages are filled with colorful and inviting illustrations. Isabel and Mami have brown skin and curly hair, and her new friend presents Black; Isabel’s teacher and other classmates are racially diverse. This story affirms the experiences of English language learners while encouraging empathy for others. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers will root for Isabel and her colorful new beginning. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5341-1063-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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