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MR. KUROKI'S GARDEN

Name: MR. KUROKI'S GARDEN
Author: Anne Renaud
ISBN: 9781623715755

by Anne Renaud ; illustrated by Ohara Hale ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 2, 2025

A timeless tale of connection, love, and hope.

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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: Dec. 2, 2025

ISBN: 9781623715755

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink

Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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FERDINAND CHEVAL
by Anne Renaud ; illustrated by Ana Salopek

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GWENDOLYN'S PET GARDEN
by Anne Renaud ; illustrated by Rashin Kheiriyeh

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THE BOY WHO INVENTED THE POPSICLE
by Anne Renaud ; illustrated by Milan Pavlović

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
A PERFECT PLACE TO PLAY
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Jim Valeri

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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IMANI'S MOON

by JaNay Brown-Wood ; illustrated by Hazel Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 14, 2014

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...

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Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.

The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)