The 100th day of school gets a lighthearted treatment in this debut rhyming picture book.
It’s the 100th day of school, but the class has only counted up to 93. The teacher is worried she’ll be fired, so the students put their heads together to figure out what days they missed. After recalling a number of chaotic days—the class pet’s escape, the field trip to the circus, the first snowfall, and more—the classmates arrive at a new total, but now they’ve hit 101. After the poor teacher faints, the students use all their counting strategies to add up the right number of days. The teacher shows her appreciation, and the class assures her: “You can count on us!” There is no shortage of books celebrating the 100th day of school, but Reistad, a librarian, captures perfectly how busy school days can escape a careful count—and how teamwork helps the students celebrate both the fun they’ve had and the class they love. The rhyming text flows smoothly and seamlessly integrates math vocabulary (“digit,” “sum,” “abacus”). Veteran illustrator Barber skillfully creates amusing illustrations, as seen in his Nobody Likes a Booger (2017), and here, that humor is particularly present in the teacher’s expressions and body language. The students are a diverse group ethnically, but they are identical in their positive attitudes and willingness to help their beleaguered instructor.
The counting concepts and comedy make this a perfect 100th day read-aloud.Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64343-987-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING | CHILDREN'S POETRY
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A guide to better behavior—at home, on the playground, in class, and in the library.
Serving as a sort of overview for the series’ 12 previous exercises in behavior modeling, this latest outing opens with a set of badly behaving dinos, identified in an endpaper key and also inconspicuously in situ. Per series formula, these are paired to leading questions like “Does she spit out her broccoli onto the floor? / Does he shout ‘I hate meat loaf!’ while slamming the door?” (Choruses of “NO!” from young audiences are welcome.) Midway through, the tone changes (“No, dinosaurs don’t”), and good examples follow to the tune of positive declarative sentences: “They wipe up the tables and vacuum the floors. / They share all the books and they never slam doors,” etc. Teague’s customary, humongous prehistoric crew, all depicted in exact detail and with wildly flashy coloration, fill both their spreads and their human-scale scenes as their human parents—no same-sex couples but some are racially mixed, and in one the man’s the cook—join a similarly diverse set of sibs and other children in either disapprobation or approving smiles. All in all, it’s a well-tested mix of oblique and prescriptive approaches to proper behavior as well as a lighthearted way to play up the use of “please,” “thank you,” and even “I’ll help when you’re hurt.”
Formulaic but not stale…even if it does mine previous topical material rather than expand it. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-36334-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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This picture book combines poetry with facts about nature.
Using the arrival of morning as its focus and theme, this nonfiction book provides information about animal, insect, and bird life along with some general natural science. From birds’ singing in the morning through moths’ finding quiet spots to rest as the sun rises to the daily routines of rabbits, foxes, and other animals, readers will discover fascinating facts about Earth’s creatures. Combining entertainment and information, this book not only features the lives of animals, but it also explains why the sky changes color throughout the day and how the Earth’s rotation creates the phenomena of day and night. Each double-page spread highlights a different creature or natural phenomenon; there’s a haiku on verso and on recto, a moderately sized paragraph with both commonly known and more unusual facts. Highlighted words stand out as obvious vocabulary builders; readers can learn their meanings in the appended glossary. The illustrations are large-scale and vivid, with the palette lightening over the course of the book as morning takes hold. Illustrations are graphically simple, with cheerful cartoon animals contributing to the upbeat mood. An added bonus is a page at the back encouraging readers to write their own nature haiku.
The combination of haiku, attractive illustrations, and interesting information makes this a keeper. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62317-385-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: North Atlantic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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