bookshelf

BOOKIE & COOKIE TURN THE PAGE

Name: BOOKIE & COOKIE TURN THE PAGE
Author: Blanca Gómez
ISBN: 9780593696835

by Blanca Gómez ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2026

Another creative tale of friendship and perspective.

bookshelf

Bookie and Cookie return for more metafictive fun.

Brown-skinned Bookie, the optimist, and pale-skinned Cookie, the cynic, stand on a blank page. In the tradition of fourth wall–breaking stories, the best friends wonder what awaits them next. Ever-hopeful Bookie imagines “a bright sunny day,” and Gómez supplies an illustration of a crayon-doodled meadow where the two chase butterflies with nets. Cookie, unconvinced, counters with the possibility of “an awful stormy day.” Cookie’s imaginings are drawn in the same bold style as the book’s main scenes, contrasting with Bookie’s sketched fantasies. The pattern continues as Bookie dreams up cheerful adventures while Cookie predicts less pleasant outcomes: traffic jams, mosquitoes, and even a naughty kid who won’t share. That child appears brown-skinned in Cookie’s daydreams but with pale skin in Bookie’s, where she’s good-natured and pleasant (indeed, all characters in Bookie’s scenes, including the titular duo, have paper-white skin), potentially reinforcing erroneous assumptions about darker-skinned children being more likely to cause trouble. Still, the story offers a lighthearted reminder about optimism, since, as Bookie points out, things might turn out just fine after all. The contrast between Bookie’s and Cookie’s imaginings and their witty back-and-forth results in a playfully self-aware story.

Another creative tale of friendship and perspective. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 10, 2026

ISBN: 9780593696835

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin

Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
A PATHWAY FOR POLLINATORS
by Michelle Schaub ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez

- BOOK REVIEW
BOOKIE AND COOKIE
by Blanca Gómez ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez

- BOOK REVIEW
A PLACE FOR RAIN
by Michelle Schaub ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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

bookshelf

IT'S NOT EASY BEING A GHOST

From the It's Not Easy Being series

by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2024

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.

bookshelf

A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.

Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)