From the opening pages, with lines like “we were piles of skin laundry blending into a world of pales and fogs,” debut author Young transports readers into a world somehow familiar and simultaneously unlike any they have ever experienced.
Two balloon people inhale and exhale each other’s essences, become bonded, and create Baby. Baby’s love brings Pet into the family, an animal made from a different kind of balloon. Tragically, Pet is deflating rapidly. Baby’s parents search desperately for a cure. In this futile process, they are pulled away from each other and from Baby until Baby’s heartbreak brings everyone back together. The language of this story is utterly surreal, but its feelings are recognizable and palpable—bright love, devastating grief, and fragile hope. Debut illustrator Sobieski renders the dreamscape visible with equally poetic illustrations. Splashy watercolors and the ample use of purple and dark green create an otherworldly environment in which the characters experience completely identifiable emotions. Gender isn’t central to the story, but it’s worth noting that Young deliberately avoids gender binaries by writing in the first person and using the third person “they” to refer to the narrator’s partner. This supremely tender book is one that readers will return to again and again, if they can bear it, finding new meaning with each reading and in each new stage of life.
Breathtakingly original. (Picture book. 4-11)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9987999-3-3
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Penny Candy
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS
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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
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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