A creative story teaches children ways to be kind.
A second grade teacher uses an invented machine to teach students about kindness in a picture book by author Christina Dankert and illustrator Chad Dankert.
Cora is confused when Mr. Wilson asks the class if anybody has a superpower. “What if I told you that ALL of you have a superpower?” he asks. Mr. Wilson then unveils the latest of his “extraordinary inventions”: the Kindness Machine, a contraption with levers, buttons, springs, and a screen at the top. When a button is pressed, the screen shows “an example of how to practice kindness.” Mr. Wilson helpfully elaborates. For instance, when the screen reads “LOVE YOURSELF,” he explains that while it’s “important to be kind to others,” self-compassion is vital, too. “If you make a mistake, tell yourself that it’s okay,” he says. When Cora presses a button, the screen reads, “BE A CHEF.” Mr. Wilson says: “Kindness is like baking a cake. The ideas from the Kindness Machine are your ingredients….The real magic happens when you combine them.” The students acknowledge that kindness involves superpowerlike actions, and the next time Mr. Wilson asks if anybody has a superpower, everyone raises a hand. Mr. Wilson’s examples of kindness are practical and easy to apply, such as offering smiles and compliments. Christina Dankert, a second grade teacher, writes from experience, and Chad Dankert gives his digitized full-color pictures a fun, cartoonlike quality. Cora has dark skin and interacts with classmates who have diverse skin tones, and a helpful list of discussion questions encourages children to think further about what they’ve read.
A creative story teaches children ways to be kind.Pub Date: March 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-955119-08-5
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Purple Butterfly Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Unforgettable
When Grandpa tells his granddaughter he has lost his Cree words, the 7-year-old asks for an explanation.
The little girl leaves school elated that she has created her own dream catcher and anxious to share it with Grandpa, who meets her. Interested in her Cree culture, she asks if he’d tell her the Cree word for “grandfather.” He tells her the truth: long ago, he lost his Cree language when he was forced to attend a residential school with other children of his village. When the two arrive home, they sit on the porch stairs together so he can answer her many questions about the way in which his first language was stolen from him and his classmates. Distressed, his granddaughter comforts him and later finds the perfect way to help. Florence’s tender text soothes the harsh reality of having Native language stolen while attending one of Canada’s former residential schools for Indigenous children. Grimard’s equally emotive illustrations show the stark realities of the experience in symbolic images, as when a crow that embodies their words is locked in a cage, and literal ones, as in a heartbreaking picture of grieving mothers stretching their arms toward the bus that takes their children away. At the same time the soft colors and nuanced expressions enrich Florence’s text. Images from the past are rendered in sepia tones, while bright blues, greens, and russets suffuse the contemporary tale.
Unforgettable . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77260-037-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Second Story Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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