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
The story’s slight but allows kids to practice identifying and dealing with their own big feelings.
The diverse group of kids from All Are Welcome (2018) this time gathers in a vacant lot with tools in hand to clear the debris and make something new. But therein lies the rub: What should the something new be? While the exact nature of the disagreement is unfortunately not made clear to readers, the big feelings that the children exhibit are very clear (and for readers who need practice reading facial clues, there’s a labeled chart of 15 in the frontmatter). This book’s refrain is “How can I help? / What can we do?” And the answers, spread over several pages and not spelled out in so many words but rather shown in the illustrations, are: talk it through, compromise, and see things from another perspective. As a guide for dealing with feelings and problem-solving, the book is a bit slim and lacks a solid story to hook readers. But, as with its predecessor, its strength is again the diversity on display in its pages. There’s a rainbow of skin tones and hair colors as well as abundant variation in hair texture, several children exhibit visible disabilities, including one child who uses a wheelchair, and there are markers of religious and cultural diversity. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 29.6% of actual size.)
The story’s slight but allows kids to practice identifying and dealing with their own big feelings. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-57974-8
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers.
A winning wheel of cheddar with braggadocio to match narrates a tale of comeuppance and redemption.
From humble beginnings among kitchen curds living “quiet lives of pasteurization,” the Big Cheese longs to be the best and builds success and renown based on proven skills and dependable results: “I stuck to the things I was good at.” When newcomer Wedge moves to the village of Curds-on-Whey, the Cheese’s star status wobbles and falls. Turns out that quiet, modest Wedge is also multitalented. At the annual Cheese-cathlon, Wedge bests six-time winner Cheese in every event, from the footrace and chess to hat making and bread buttering. A disappointed Cheese throws a full-blown tantrum before arriving at a moment of truth: Self-calming, conscious breathing permits deep relief that losing—even badly—does not result in disaster. A debrief with Wedge “that wasn’t all about me” leads to further realizations: Losing builds empathy for others; obsession with winning obscures “the joy of participating.” The chastened cheddar learns to reserve bragging for lifting up friends, because anyone can be the Big Cheese. More didactic and less pun-rich than previous entries in the Food Group series, this outing nevertheless couples a cheerful refrain with pithy life lessons that hit home. Oswald’s detailed, comical illustrations continue to provide laughs, including a spot with Cheese onstage doing a “CHED” talk.
From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063329508
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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