An exuberant portrayal of the mother-daughter dynamic.
A young girl plays in the backyard and negotiates with her mother about naptime.
Stacey, a young African American girl resplendent in her red jacket and beaded braids, is allowed outside by Mom to burn off some energy before naptime. Stacey’s zest for life is immediately evident: “Wheee! / I’m going to jump, jump, JUMP. / I’m going to jump, jump, JUMP! / On and off the tree stump.” This pattern is repeated throughout: a reaction (“Wheee!”) in a gleeful purple font, followed by a chanted (and enchanting!) repetition and rhyme. Stacey hops and skips and dances and twirls. She also frets about—and rebels against—having to come back inside. Mom remains good humored but assertive, and by the end of story, she’s been proven correct: Stacey really does need a nap! Silva, whose last book was Stacey Became a Frog One Day, portrays a warm family rooted in day-to-day routine, highlighting both the joy of childhood and the love and challenges associated with parenting. The book’s double-page spreads afford plenty of white space for the text to breathe. Aquidado’s digital illustrations imbue Stacey and her mom with genuine, expressive personalities, and motion lines and blurred autumnal colors convey the vitality of Stacey (and her dog!) at play. A sweet, memorable read that children will enjoy many times over.
An exuberant portrayal of the mother-daughter dynamic.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2021
ISBN: 9781735138534
Page Count: 50
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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