Grounded in both nature and nurture: a tale sure to affirm the nonconformist’s spirit.
A girl with unconventional passions finds her community.
Shocking her parents—both expert gardeners—baby Prunella arrives not with the proverbial green thumb, but a purple one. Accordingly, Prunella’s plant affinities run to the spiny, carnivorous, fungal, and poisonous sorts. While her parents don’t always understand her predilections, they nurture them anyway. From bladderwort to voodoo lilies, her plants “pinched and poked and reeked.” Neighborhood kids avoid Prunella and her garden. Like a species with protective spines, Prunella grows “prickly,” eschewing her peers. Though concerned, her parents know that her “strong roots” will help her “blossom” when she’s ready. Opportunity arrives with Oliver, a young aspiring botanist who can correctly identify Prunella’s plants and convinces her to diagnose his ailing Venus flytrap. Prunella begins to open up as Oliver and his sister, future mycologist Clem, enter her life, planting a “tiny, hopeful friend-shaped seed.” The siblings connect her with a “bouquet of botanists” (as well as “one very curious entomologist”), and the fruit from a thorny new plant—blackberries!—stains everyone’s thumbs purple. Keane supplies accomplished, episodic, animation-influenced illustrations in a palette of blue-gray, ochre, and red. Kids attracted to unusual plants will encounter an equally satisfying theme: Cultivate your passions, and your people will show up. Prunella and her parents are brown-skinned with straight black hair, Oliver and Clem are Black, and the community is diverse.
Grounded in both nature and nurture: a tale sure to affirm the nonconformist’s spirit. (information on “Prunella’s persnickety plants”) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781665921732
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Earnest and well meaning but not quite a touchdown.
In Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Hurts’ motivational picture book, a youngster rebounds from disappointment.
As Jalen heads off on his first day of school, he daydreams about joining the football team, but his friend Trey soon breaks the bad news. The garden club needed more space for vegetables, so the football field was used for planting. There will be no football this year. Jalen is despondent, but his teachers Mrs. Lee and Mr. Barry and bodega owner Mr. Muhammad offer guidance that spurs him and his friends into positive action. They work to flip a nearby empty lot into a football field, with Jalen echoing his mentors’ adages. Once the field is complete, Jalen feels a swell of pride in his and his friends’ work. While the idea of kids working together to effect change is a laudable one, the bland, wordy storytelling won’t inspire young people or hold their attention. Tired, cliched inspirational comments peppered throughout often slow down the narrative, and many adult readers will find the premise—a school dropping a high-interest sports program in favor of a community garden—wildly unrealistic. Though the illustrations are colorful, with a Disney Junior charm, strange stylistic choices, such as signs with odd combinations of scribbles instead of letters, give them an unpolished look. Like Hurts, Jalen is Black; his community is diverse.
Earnest and well meaning but not quite a touchdown. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9798217040308
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his...
It’s a wonderful day in the jungle, so why’s Jim Panzee so grumpy?
When Jim woke up, nothing was right: "The sun was too bright, the sky was too blue, and bananas were too sweet." Norman the gorilla asks Jim why he’s so grumpy, and Jim insists he’s not. They meet Marabou, to whom Norman confides that Jim’s grumpy. When Jim denies it again, Marabou points out that Jim’s shoulders are hunched; Jim stands up. When they meet Lemur, Lemur points out Jim’s bunchy eyebrows; Jim unbunches them. When he trips over Snake, Snake points out Jim’s frown…so Jim puts on a grimacelike smile. Everyone has suggestions to brighten his mood: dancing, singing, swinging, swimming…but Jim doesn’t feel like any of that. He gets so fed up, he yells at his animal friends and stomps off…then he feels sad about yelling. He and Norman (who regrets dancing with that porcupine) finally just have a sit and decide it’s a wonderful day to be grumpy—which, of course, makes them both feel a little better. Suzanne Lang’s encouragement to sit with your emotions (thus allowing them to pass) is nearly Buddhist in its take, and it will be great bibliotherapy for the crabby, cranky, and cross. Oscar-nominated animator Max Lang’s cartoony illustrations lighten the mood without making light of Jim’s mood; Jim has comically long arms, and his facial expressions are quite funny.
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his journey. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-53786-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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