A jaunty, rhyming romp with a serious injunction to embrace everyday joy.
In this picture book, a listless fourth grader learns to appreciate the good things in his life.
Light-skinned, brown-haired William lives on Prickinjer Place, a winding suburban road lined with neat, colorful houses and elf shoe–trunked trees laden with peppy, pink fruit. Despite the magic of his surroundings, William’s lethargic. A new toy briefly raises his spirits, but then he sinks back into the doldrums. Only through the encouragement of a passing Humble-Brum (an odd, wise sort of bee) does he learn to lean into thoughts of nice things: his mother’s smile; praise from his teacher (dark-skinned Ms. Berning); his house near his best friend (red-haired wannabe magician Chucky). Soon, William shakes off his languor and rushes off to play. With its made-up words, rhyming couplets, and sometimes skip-along anapestic tetrameter, Fleming’s text gives off distinct Dr. Seuss vibes: “In each yard there’s at least one big Gumble-Grum tree, / right there in the front, some have two; some have three!” But Geyer’s digital illustrations, while perfectly serviceable in capturing a sense of place, lack the whimsy to fully emulate Dr. Seuss. The humans, in particular, seem rather generic and evince limited facial expressions. (In addition, William’s hair and clothes remain unchanged across several days.) That said, the tale delivers plenty of background details to keep readers engaged. In a suitably quirky afterword, Fleming offers backstories and what-came-afters for all the characters.
A jaunty, rhyming romp with a serious injunction to embrace everyday joy.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2025
ISBN: 9798988910978
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Kahu Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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