Positive and healthy behaviors and practices clumsily mixed together with, ironically, seeming unawareness of the book’s...
Concepts such as “compassion,” “giving,” and “meditation” are introduced one letter at a time.
As with previous titles in Engel’s ABC for Me series, this book is printed on thick, sturdy pages that are filled with bright, cartoonish images of happy children with varied skin tones. A word connected (however tangentially) to the concept of mindfulness is introduced with brief, rhyming text on each page. The final pages present a definition of mindfulness and a few activities for practice. While the concepts are all positive notions that most people would agree are healthy for young children, problems with this book’s execution become immediately apparent with its cringeworthy appropriation of images from various cultures and spiritual traditions. Symbols such as dream catchers, Buddha statues, prayer flags, and culturally specific words such as “Namaste” and “Zen” are all used without providing any context on their origins or significance. The text also struggles, often forcing itself to fit the rhyme structure. “Pay attention to your energy. Is it high or very low? / Either way, just remember it will always flow.” Further, the book confuses mindfulness—the nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment—with other concepts and actions that, while well-intentioned, don’t necessarily have anything to do with mindfulness, such as “sleep” and “vegetables.”
Positive and healthy behaviors and practices clumsily mixed together with, ironically, seeming unawareness of the book’s overall effect. (Board book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63322-510-7
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Walter Foster Jr.
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adults will do better skipping the book and talking with their children.
Social-equity themes are presented to children in ABC format.
Terms related to intersectional inequality, such as “class,” “gender,” “privilege,” “oppression,” “race,” and “sex,” as well as other topics important to social justice such as “feminism,” “human being,” “immigration,” “justice,” “kindness,” “multicultural,” “transgender,” “understanding,” and “value” are named and explained. There are 26 in all, one for each letter of the alphabet. Colorful two-page spreads with kid-friendly illustrations present each term. First the term is described: “Belief is when you are confident something exists even if you can’t see it. Lots of different beliefs fill the world, and no single belief is right for everyone.” On the facing page it concludes: “B is for BELIEF / Everyone has different beliefs.” It is hard to see who the intended audience for this little board book is. Babies and toddlers are busy learning the names for their body parts, familiar objects around them, and perhaps some basic feelings like happy, hungry, and sad; slightly older preschoolers will probably be bewildered by explanations such as: “A value is an expression of how to live a belief. A value can serve as a guide for how you behave around other human beings. / V is for VALUE / Live your beliefs out loud.”
Adults will do better skipping the book and talking with their children. (Board book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78603-742-8
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
So rocket science can be fun.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
If they haven’t already thought about their futures (and they probably haven’t), toddlers and preschoolers might start planning after perusing this cheerful first guide to scientific careers. Plump-cheeked, wide-eyed tykes with various skin and hair colors introduce different professions, including zoologist, meteorologist, aerospace engineer, and environmental scientist, depicted with cues to tip readers off to what the jobs entail. The simple text presents the sometimes-long, tongue-twisting career names while helpfully defining them in comprehensible terms. For example, an environmental scientist “helps take care of our world,” and a zoologist is defined as someone who “studies how animals behave.” Scientists in general are identified as those who “study, learn, and solve problems.” Such basic language not only benefits youngsters, but also offers adults sharing the book easy vocabulary with which to expand on conversations with kids about the professions. The title’s ebullient appearance is helped along by the typography: The jobs’ names are set in all caps, printed in color and in a larger font than the surrounding text, and emphasized with exclamation points. Additionally, the buoyant watercolors feature clues to what scientists in these fields work with, such as celestial bodies for astronomers. The youngest listeners won’t necessarily get all of this, but the book works as a rudimentary introduction to STEM topics and a shoutout to scientific endeavors.
So rocket science can be fun. (Informational picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62354-149-1
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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