An engaging, accessible narrative of immigration, resilience, and connections between generations.
A Korean American girl learns the history of the gold dress she plans to wear in a talent show in this picture book.
Hannah is anxious about her Korean dance performance for her school talent show. A huge worry is her ostentatious peach-and-gold dress: “It was too different. Too Korean.” Noticing her discomfort, her mother tells her the story of her great-grandmother’s hanbok fabric business in Korea. The woman had to flee North Korea during the war. She needed to bring her fabrics with her but could not carry many bags; instead, she wrapped hanbok silks around her body under her coat, including a peach-and-gold one. Before moving to America, she gave the new store owner in Seoul instructions never to sell the peach-and-gold hanbok unless a girl named Geum Chun requested it. When Hannah was born, her great-grandmother gave her a Korean name—Geum Chun—so that she could eventually claim the dress. Armed with this knowledge, Hannah dazzles at the talent show. While questions remain—why did Hannah never learn this secret before?—the emotional arc of Paik’s story is neat and the message affirming for children seeking connections with immigrant histories that feel remote. Lin Park’s acrylic paintings offer detailed, realistic portraits of Hannah, her mother, and the bright silk fabric and sketchier pictures of the historical narrative. The titular dress is rendered in stunning gold paint.
An engaging, accessible narrative of immigration, resilience, and connections between generations.Pub Date: May 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-954109-11-7
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Imagilore Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts.
In this latest slice in the Food Group series, Humble Pie learns to stand up to a busy friend who’s taking advantage of his pal’s hard work on the sidelines.
Jake the Cake and Humble Pie are good friends. Where Pie is content to toil in the background, Jake happily shines in the spotlight. Alert readers will notice that Pie’s always right there, too, getting A-pluses and skiing expertly just behind—while also doing the support work that keeps every school and social project humming. “Fact: Nobody notices pie when there’s cake nearby!” When the two friends pair up for a science project, things begin well. But when the overcommitted Jake makes excuse after excuse, showing up late or not at all, a panicked Pie realizes that they won’t finish in time. When Jake finally shows up on the night before the project’s due, Pie courageously confronts him. “And for once, I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.” The friends talk it out and collaborate through the night for the project’s successful presentation in class the next day. John and Oswald’s winning recipe—plentiful puns and delightful visual jokes—has yielded another treat here. The narration does skew didactic as it wraps up: “There’s nothing wrong with having a tough conversation, asking for help, or making sure you’re being treated fairly.” But it’s all good fun, in service of some gentle lessons about social-emotional development.
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780063469730
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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