A genuine expression of just how loved and special children are.
Sullivan’s picture book is an ode to a little girl named Dylan.
In a hospital nursery full of newborns, Dylan smiles and winks at her mother and the doctor; she is special, perfect, and precious from the beginning. As Dylan begins learning to walk, she is fearless. When she falls, she gets right back up again, except for one time when she simply looks around, puts her thumb in her mouth, and takes an impromptu nap right there on the floor. As she gets a little older, Dylan indulges in more comical behavior, raiding the kitchen for cake, taking off her shoes and socks and putting her feet on the table at dinner time, and displaying an excellent sense of humor: “On pizza night Dylan always says to her dad, / ‘There’s a mushroom on your head!’ / And when Dad puts his hand up to see if it’s true, / She laughs ’til her cheeks turn red.” Dylan likes splashing in the mud, singing into her toothbrush/microphone in the bathroom, telling bedtime stories to her stuffed animals, and playing tricks on Mom and Dad. Most of all, Dylan loves to make people laugh. Watson’s whimsical cartoon illustrations spotlight Dylan—the other characters appear as shadows, reacting to her antics. Through the illustrations, readers see Dylan grow from a newborn baby to a little girl, showing the passage of time between stages of her development to give context to the action. Sullivan tells Dylan’s story through rhyming poetry. Each quatrain captures a moment in time tenderly and without artifice: “In summertime Dylan likes washing the car, / And she does it like you’ve never seen. / She can only reach up to the door handles, / So just half of the car gets clean!” The limericklike rhythm maintained throughout the book matches the snapshots of Dylan’s spirit. The narrative honors the truest meaning of delight in the way that each adventure begins with something new and unexpected and ends in a smile—an experience loving parents know well.
A genuine expression of just how loved and special children are.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9798891324930
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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