What’s a name for this richly satisfying book? Winner.
What’s in a name?
According to this thought-provoking conversation sparker, lots—more than readers probably realized. Names are fraught with meaning and spring from varied sources. As narrated in jaunty verse and clarified through speech bubbles, this spirited offering invites children to discover, ponder, and discuss fascinating things about names—their own and those of parents, family members, friends, neighbors, and others, even pets. Many kids may never have thought about names this way. They will learn names aren’t just personal identifiers, but also have functions. Names can be familiar or unique. They can honor people from history or pay homage to seasons, weather, birthplaces, and birth times. What if our names don’t suit us? We can “try new names, or add on a bit, / give them a whirl, and see how they fit”—as in the scene depicting a light-skinned child wearing a tutu who adds an A to their name (turning Louis to Louisa) and looks admiringly in a mirror. Perhaps this book’s greatest strengths are its cheery declarations, portrayals of diversity—in race, ethnicity, attire, and physical ability (a child fingerspells their name in ASL)—and depictions of respectful camaraderie and pride in being unabashedly oneself, expressed through text and charming illustrations, created with traditional printmaking methods and assembled digitally. Grown-ups should absolutely encourage lively post-reading discussion with kids—and note the characters’ final question (“what’s yours?”); response guaranteed! (This book was reviewed digitally.)
What’s a name for this richly satisfying book? Winner. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1856-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning.
Children realize their dreams one step at a time in this story about growth mindset.
A child crashes and damages a new bicycle on a dark, rainy day. Attempting a wheelie, the novice cyclist falls onto the sidewalk, grimacing, and, having internalized this setback as failure, vows to never ride again but to “walk…forever.” Then the unnamed protagonist happens upon a glowing orb in the forest, a “thought rearranger-er”—a luminous pink fairy called the Magical Yet. This Yet reminds the child of past accomplishments and encourages perseverance. The second-person rhyming couplets remind readers that mistakes are part of learning and that with patience and effort, children can achieve. Readers see the protagonist learn to ride the bike before a flash-forward shows the child as a capable college graduate confidently designing a sleek new bike. This book shines with diversity: racial, ethnic, ability, and gender. The gender-indeterminate protagonist has light brown skin and exuberant curly locks; Amid the bustling secondary cast, one child uses a prosthesis, and another wears hijab. At no point in the text is the Yet defined as a metaphor for a growth mindset; adults reading with younger children will likely need to clarify this abstract lesson. The artwork is powerful and detailed—pay special attention to the endpapers that progress to show the Yet at work.
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-02562-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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