An encouraging, enlightening tale of love, family, and open adoption.
A wise brown owl tells the story of how a young girl came to be adopted in Olson’s picture book.
Addressing an unnamed blond girl, Wanda, a grandmotherly owl, says, “It all started a long time ago… / Before you were born, your parents wanted a child.” Wanda relates how the girl’s adoptive mothers—two dark-haired women, one Black, one White—hoped and longed for a child, how they applied to an adoption agency, and how the girl’s birth mother (a woman who also has blond hair) loved the girl and wanted what was best for her, and so carefully chose her adoptive mothers from among many hopefuls wishing for a child of their own. Wanda describes how the new moms celebrated when they received the good news, how they held the newborn girl shortly after her birth, and how, as she grows, they plan to share news of her exploits and photos with her birth mother. Wanda concludes, “It started long before you were born / and will continue—all through your life.” Olson narrates this LGBTQ+ family story in unadorned, unrhymed prose, focusing the narrative on the pureness of the love that all three mothers feel for the child. Urbiztondo’s digital illustrations emphasize the joy of this parenting dynamic, both in the adults’ doting and dancing and through life-affirming background details, family snapshots, and swirling bursts of color.
An encouraging, enlightening tale of love, family, and open adoption.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Kids Are Awesome Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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