A quietly effective look at how we learn and come together.
Music lessons strengthen intergenerational connections in Simmonds’ children’s book.
Kayson, a young Black boy, is the middle of three brothers. Though the boys are all avid athletes, their parents want them to be well-rounded, which means adding music lessons to their lists of activities. For Kayson, that means learning to play the piano. Getting him to lessons can be difficult with the family’s busy schedule, so his Papa helps out, escorting Kayson to his Suzuki-style classes. Papa is surprised that Kayson isn’t learning to read notes, but he keeps an open mind as Kayson explains his teacher’s process. Papa has questions about the tablet Kayson uses, and Kayson gets to teach him about technology. Just before the big recital, Kayson tears his shirt trying to keep up with his siblings, and his older brother Kendall steps in to help out. With his extended family sitting in the audience, Kayson deals with his nerves, puts his lessons to work, and gives his solo debut. The book tells a simple story of one boy’s learning process as he not only absorbs the lessons taught by his piano teacher but also explains them to a curious Papa, who comes to see the value of the Suzuki method even though it differs from the more traditional method of music instruction he is familiar with. (“I guess there is more than one way to learn,” Papa says after the recital.) The book is not entirely subtle in its messaging (Papa says “practice makes perfect” more than once), but it still tells an enjoyable story. Dale’s colorful illustrations bring Kayson’s family to life in vibrant images of piano-playing and warm family scenes, including a particularly adept depiction of the chaos of getting everyone to games and practices on time.
A quietly effective look at how we learn and come together.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781735029580
Page Count: 34
Publisher: INOT Productions, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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