A comforting celebration of life at night.
A mother shares her love of nighttime to help her child feel less alone under the moonlit sky in Brooks’ quiet picture book.
Little Elijah is anxious. When he can’t find his mom inside, he realizes she is sitting on the steps outside. Elijah’s mother thinks looking at the moon is soothing, but Elijah isn’t sure; it looks creepy to him. Elijah’s mother leads him out into the nighttime, explaining that, to see stars and the moon, it has to be dark outside. When Elijah can’t find the animals he hears, his mother explains, “We may not see them, but the moon does. Just like we see the moon, the moon sees us.” The evening outside with his mother comforts Elijah enough to relieve his fears. Brooks makes the choice to never explain what has Elijah worried, which serves the narrative well, putting the focus not on finding a solution to a problem but on just being together, demonstrating how that kind of support can help children feel secure. Simple, accessible sentences help emphasize the deep love between parent and child. Dukhande’s illustrations do a beautiful job of portraying people and creatures that look real within their environments, with soft-edged, painterly forms. Elijah’s mom has a round figure, tattoos, and an upward-tilted button nose; curly-haired Elijah has darker-hued skin than his pale mother.
A comforting celebration of life at night.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2023
ISBN: 9798886806182
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Primedia eLaunch LLC
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads.
Emma deals with jitters before playing the guitar in the school talent show.
Pop musician Kevin Jonas and his wife, Danielle, put performance at the center of their picture-book debut. When Emma is intimidated by her very talented friends, the encouragement of her younger sister, Bella, and the support of her family help her to shine her own light. The story is straightforward and the moral familiar: Draw strength from your family and within to overcome your fears. Employing the performance-anxiety trope that’s been written many times over, the book plods along predictably—there’s nothing really new or surprising here. Dawson’s full-color digital illustrations center a White-presenting family along with Emma’s three friends of color: Jamila has tanned skin and wears a hijab; Wendy has dark brown skin and Afro puffs; and Luis has medium brown skin. Emma’s expressive eyes and face are the real draw of the artwork—from worry to embarrassment to joy, it’s clear what she’s feeling. A standout double-page spread depicts Emma’s talent show performance, with a rainbow swirl of music erupting from an amp and Emma rocking a glam outfit and electric guitar. Overall, the book reads pretty plainly, buoyed largely by the artwork. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35207-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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