Exceptionally lovely, like a gentle tug at the heartstrings.
A young Cuban refugee unexpectedly reconnects with her home country in this 1960s-set tale.
“¡MANI! ¡MANI!” Each night, the Peanut Man’s song reverberates through the Havana streets. For little Coqui, that means it’s time to play a game with her friend Emilio, el mansiero (Spanish for peanut vendor). Standing at the window with her thumbs in her ears and her tongue out, Coqui calls out, “Thiddle, thiddle, thiddle!” And Emilio does the same. “Every. Single. Night.” One evening, Mami suddenly announces that the family must flee for los Estados Unidos. As a tearful Coqui confides the news to Emilio, her friend tries to lift her spirits. After all, that new country also promises lots of beisbol, the sport that Coqui loves. Promising never to forget her friend, Coqui leaves Havana for Decatur, Georgia. The seasons pass, and still, Coqui misses Cuba. Then…“PEANUTS!” A chance encounter at a Braves game reveals that home can be one yummy bag of peanuts away. Deedy brings her heartfelt, pensively paced tale to a satisfying conclusion. In a brief yet potent afterword, she recounts the personal origins of this wistful, vividly written immigrant tale of cherished memories and everyday bonds. Rendered in watercolor, colored pencil, and lithograph crayon, Colón’s artwork—a cozy series of sepia-tinged images—masterfully conjures up a past that still feels immediate.
Exceptionally lovely, like a gentle tug at the heartstrings. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781682635681
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Margaret Quinlin Books/Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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
As insubstantial as hot air.
A diverse cast of children first makes a fleet of hot air balloons and then takes to the sky in them.
Lifestyle maven Gaines uses this activity as a platform to celebrate diversity in learning and working styles. Some people like to work together; others prefer a solo process. Some take pains to plan extensively; others know exactly what they want and jump right in. Some apply science; others demonstrate artistic prowess. But “see how beautiful it can be when / our differences share the same sky?” Double-page spreads leading up to this moment of liftoff are laid out such that rhyming abcb quatrains typically contain one or two opposing concepts: “Some of us are teachers / and share what we know. / But all of us are learners. / Together is how we grow!” In the accompanying illustration, a bespectacled, Asian-presenting child at a blackboard lectures the other children on “balloon safety.” Gaines’ text has the ring of sincerity, but the sentiment is hardly an original one, and her verse frequently sacrifices scansion for rhyme. Sometimes it abandons both: “We may not look / or work or think the same, / but we all have an / important part to play.” Swaney’s delicate, pastel-hued illustrations do little to expand on the text, but they are pretty. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.2-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 70.7% of actual size.)
As insubstantial as hot air. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4003-1423-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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