Children will be eager beavers to try their own sleepovers with Chip’s gentle aid.
A new experience yields surprises, good and bad, in a sleepover story.
After the miscommunications rife in My Friend Ben Won’t Share (2021), the beaver duo of Chip and Ben returns in a much merrier premise. When Ben invites Chip over for a first-time sleepover, it takes little convincing to get Chip in on Ben’s big plans. They’ll build a fort outside, tell scary stories, and more! But once at Ben’s house, Chip keeps wistfully thinking of Mom and Dad, wondering whether Dad would enjoy the dinner Ben’s parents serve or whether Mom and Dad are playing with Chip’s toys. Outdoor camping seems to be going fine for the two kits, right up until the night noises have them fleeing back inside. Even so, Chip sticks it out in Ben’s room that night, proudly proclaiming in the morn, “I can’t wait for our next sleepover.” Anxious younger readers will find a like-minded soul in Chip, as there is much to identify with in this sweet story of seeing a new experience through to the end. Uncomplicated, easy-to-parse art provides just the right cartoon feel for a story that legitimizes young children’s big emotions.
Children will be eager beavers to try their own sleepovers with Chip’s gentle aid. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-5309-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message.
Drawing on lyrics from her Mormon children’s hymn of the same title, Pearson explores diversity and acceptance in a more secular context.
Addressing people of varying ages, races, origins, and abilities in forced rhymes that omit the original version’s references to Jesus, various speakers describe how they—unlike “some people”—will “show [their] love for” their fellow humans. “If you don’t talk as most people do / some people talk and laugh at you,” a child tells a tongue-tied classmate. “But I won’t! / I won’t! / I’ll talk with you / and giggle too. / That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Unfortunately, many speakers’ actions feel vague and rather patronizing even as they aim to include and reassure. “I know you bring such interesting things,” a wheelchair user says, welcoming a family “born far, far away” who arrives at the airport; the adults wear Islamic clothing. As pink- and brown-skinned worshipers join a solitary brown-skinned person who somehow “[doesn’t] pray as some people pray” on a church pew, a smiling, pink-skinned worshiper’s declaration that “we’re all, I see, one family” raises echoes of the problematic assertion, “I don’t see color.” The speakers’ exclamations of “But I won’t!” after noting others’ prejudiced behavior reads more as self-congratulation than promise of inclusion. Sanders’ geometric, doll-like human figures are cheery but stiff, and the text’s bold, uppercase typeface switches jarringly to cursive for the refrain, “That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Characters’ complexions include paper-white, yellow, pink, and brown.
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4236-5395-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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