A wonderful resource to help prepare children for medical intervention after an injury.
After an accident, a girl finds support, comfort, and care from kind medical staff in Kollias’ debut picture book.
Maria and her brother are jumping on the couch when she falls and breaks her arm. At the hospital, she encounters caring doctors and nurses who provide her with explanations to help her feel safe. For example, a nurse uses a blood pressure cuff to see “how well Maria’s HEART was working to pump blood around her body.” Maria also receives an IV and x-rays, and she receives medicine that puts her to sleep so that a doctor can make her arm straight. The author, an orthopedic surgeon, depicts medical processes using child-friendly language (“an x-ray is a picture of bones…taken with a special camera that can see through skin”). Overall, the story takes readers on a realistic journey, which concludes when Maria gets her cast removed. It also introduces educational elements, including anatomical terms: “Dr. Anna said Maria’s body was making ‘CALLUS’…a big ball of bone glue. The glue had calcium in it, to make…broken bones heal.” Guile’s (Bear Picks a Pumpkin, 2018, etc.) top-notch illustrations are charming and colorful, with diverse characters. They emphasize friendly faces, which will be particularly encouraging to young patients in similar circumstances.
A wonderful resource to help prepare children for medical intervention after an injury.Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-228-80221-1
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Tellwell Talent
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The greening of Dr. Seuss, in an ecology fable with an obvious message but a savingly silly style. In the desolate land of the Lifted Lorax, an aged creature called the Once-ler tells a young visitor how he arrived long ago in the then glorious country and began manufacturing anomalous objects called Thneeds from "the bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees." Despite protests from the Lorax, a native "who speaks for the trees," he continues to chop down Truffulas until he drives away the Brown Bar-ba-loots who had fed on the Tuffula fruit, the Swomee-Swans who can't sing a note for the smogulous smoke, and the Humming-Fish who had hummed in the pond now glumped up with Gluppity-Glupp. As for the Once-let, "1 went right on biggering, selling more Thneeds./ And I biggered my money, which everyone needs" — until the last Truffula falls. But one seed is left, and the Once-let hands it to his listener, with a message from the Lorax: "UNLESS someone like you/ cares a whole awful lot,/ nothing is going to get better./ It's not." The spontaneous madness of the old Dr. Seuss is absent here, but so is the boredom he often induced (in parents, anyway) with one ridiculous invention after another. And if the Once-let doesn't match the Grinch for sheer irresistible cussedness, he is stealing a lot more than Christmas and his story just might induce a generation of six-year-olds to care a whole lot.
Pub Date: Aug. 12, 1971
ISBN: 0394823370
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1971
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BOOK REVIEW
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