This odd couple doesn’t need any lessons on friendship, though perhaps they could use some pointers on safe skateboarding.
A Type-A personality learns to walk in someone else’s shoes (literally!) after an accident.
Les is the left leg to Ronnie’s right, and though they are both of a warm, light-brown hue, the two could not be more different. Les is precise and ordered, matches and plans which sock to wear, likes sensible shoes, and does not dance. Ronnie is laid-back and creative, wears whichever sock stinks the least, likes wild shoes that are impractical, and loves to party. Needless to say, life together is difficult for this pair of opposites. One day, out skateboarding, to Les’ displeasure, Ronnie suffers a sprained ankle and is out of commission for a bit. Les at first likes the routine that Ronnie’s forced to follow, the calm, the predictability. But then boredom sets in. How far will Les step out of the comfort zone to cheer Ronnie up and bring some life back into their routine? Quite a bit, and Les actually has fun doing it! Kolb’s pencil-and-digital illustrations play up the dichotomy between the two legs, their faces’ eyebrows and mouths (drawn just above the ankles) making them as emotive as any emoji. The sequence in which Les lets loose is especially enjoyable and illustrates just how awkward and uncomfortable it can be at first, though by the end Les and Ronnie are both all smiles.
This odd couple doesn’t need any lessons on friendship, though perhaps they could use some pointers on safe skateboarding. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54619-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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