A hard, heartfelt read.
A picture-book effort to raise consciousness in privileged readers about child labor and poverty.
On each spread, the simple text reads “I like [something]” on the verso and “I don’t like [the same something]” on the recto in order to juxtapose children set in very different, but related, scenes. The contrasting sentences and their accompanying mixed-media illustrations position the child who likes something as privileged and playful and the child who doesn’t like that same thing as exploited and oppressed while laboring. For example, facing pages that read, “I like shoes. / I don’t like shoes,” depict a white girl playing dress-up with high heeled shoes on the verso, while the recto illustration manipulates scale and depicts a barefoot child of color dwarfed by a large men’s dress shoe as she crouches before it with shoe-shine tools. The poignant, culminating spread breaks this established pattern and reads, “I like playing. / What is playing?” Throughout, striking illustrations include a racially diverse group of children in positions of privilege, but all the exploited child laborers appear to be children of color in different cultural contexts. Front- and backmatter pages reference the U.N.’s 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (noting that the United States has not ratified it) and point readers to organizations helping to reduce poverty and eliminate child labor.
A hard, heartfelt read. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5480-3
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 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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