A solid, positive animal tale for budding environmentalists.
Two young girls help sea turtles by collecting plastic from the ocean in this debut picture book.
Sadie and Josie—two blond, blue-eyed White girls who appear to be preschoolers—live on a sailboat. After a windy night, their sea turtle friend, Fig, asks them for help: “Holy anchovies! There’s trouble in Jellyfish Alley!” After enlisting their parents, the girls dive down to discover the problem. The wind sent too many plastic grocery bags into the water, and the sea turtles are mistaking them for jellyfish. The girls and their mother help free the turtles and collect the garbage. Not stopping with solving the immediate problem, the family tackles the larger issue, making signs to get the community involved and writing letters to legislators. Based on the true story of Williamson’s trash-collecting efforts with her daughters (the real Sadie and Josie), the book includes a thank-you note from the girls to all the readers who help out. The author helpfully provides action items for readers unsure about how to start. But the simple text is at times a little too whimsical. The sea turtles all speak English, and the girls can talk underwater, both of which undermine the realistic message. But Holovchenko’s gorgeous paintings reaffirm the realism in her detailed turtles and wildlife. Newly independent readers will only find a few challenging words. In addition, there are plenty of clues in the pictures to help them figure out the story.
A solid, positive animal tale for budding environmentalists.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1662932489
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Island Writer Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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