A timeless tale of connection, love, and hope.
Love and hope can bloom anywhere.
Mr. and Mrs. Kuroki, two Japanese farmers, care for their cows and family on lush green hills. They dream of traveling the world, learning new languages and traditions. But time passes, and Mrs. Kuroki becomes ill, losing her eyesight. “Her world had become small. Her world had become night”—poignant words followed by a montage of Mrs. Kuroki growing smaller, grayer, and eventually invisible. Despite her husband’s efforts to keep her from disappearing, their aspirations of globetrotting have changed forever. But bright pink endpapers foreshadow his thoughtful solution to this heartbreaking problem. Mr. Kuroki plants rose-colored shibazakura, or moss phlox, which thrives and spreads across the hills, and he creates paths and benches so Mrs. Kuroki can visit the garden. When people from all over the world come to see this incredible garden, bringing with them their languages, cultures, and traditions, Mrs. Kuroki at last smiles and comes back to life. Renaud employs spare prose for a simple and elegant account of actual events, told with permission from the real-life Mr. Kuroki. Hale’s evocative illustrations use pencil lines and watercolor washes of primarily greens, yellows, and pinks to take readers on the Kurokis’ emotional journey, alternating between quieter spreads of whites and pinks and vibrant displays of vivid garden blooms and a cultural collage of world traditions.
A timeless tale of connection, love, and hope. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781623715755
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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