An ideal approach to an important and challenging subject.
In this Cino sisters picture-book guide to body safety, young readers learn when secrets are okay and when they’re not.
“In the very back corner of everyone’s MIND, lives the Family of Secrets, wild and divine,” the book begins. Each member deals with a different kind of confidential information: Surprise is excited for birthdays and confetti, for instance, and Trust safely deals with “passwords and garage codes.” Unsafe, however, is “unlike the rest”: “What happened was NOT her fault / and cannot be undone.” The family gathers around Unsafe and encourages her to tell a Safe Adult her secret, assuring her that if “someone touched your body / or asked you to do the same, / they are in the wrong, / we need to know their name.” After Unsafe tells a counselor, she gets a new name—Brave—and the family celebrates. This picture book addresses a daunting topic, but the authors’ choice to use rhyme lends a gentleness to serious information without making it scary. Blakeborough’s watercolor illustrations complement the text perfectly; the amorphous, bloblike family members feel expressive and alive. The book helpfully includes a FAQ on body safety (“How do I know if I have a safe or unsafe secret?”), and a list of Safe Adults, including teachers and social workers.
An ideal approach to an important and challenging subject.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9798991390101
Page Count: 40
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts.
In this latest slice in the Food Group series, Humble Pie learns to stand up to a busy friend who’s taking advantage of his pal’s hard work on the sidelines.
Jake the Cake and Humble Pie are good friends. Where Pie is content to toil in the background, Jake happily shines in the spotlight. Alert readers will notice that Pie’s always right there, too, getting A-pluses and skiing expertly just behind—while also doing the support work that keeps every school and social project humming. “Fact: Nobody notices pie when there’s cake nearby!” When the two friends pair up for a science project, things begin well. But when the overcommitted Jake makes excuse after excuse, showing up late or not at all, a panicked Pie realizes that they won’t finish in time. When Jake finally shows up on the night before the project’s due, Pie courageously confronts him. “And for once, I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.” The friends talk it out and collaborate through the night for the project’s successful presentation in class the next day. John and Oswald’s winning recipe—plentiful puns and delightful visual jokes—has yielded another treat here. The narration does skew didactic as it wraps up: “There’s nothing wrong with having a tough conversation, asking for help, or making sure you’re being treated fairly.” But it’s all good fun, in service of some gentle lessons about social-emotional development.
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780063469730
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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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
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