A gorgeously rendered affirmation fueled by powerful metaphors to bolster self-love.
Encouraging words help young readers value their own inner lights in this beautifully painted, self-esteem-bolstering picture book.
Electric lights turn on and off, but two lights remain constant: the sun and each person’s own inner light. “It beams out through your grin and is uniquely yours,” the narrator explains, celebrating qualities such as intelligence, determination, and curiosity that make that light shine. Just as the sun sometimes goes behind a cloud, inner lights also change; they can foster community, encourage bravery, offer fortitude in the face of a struggle, or support determination in spite of failure. Sometimes, the light is seen in a reflection in others. Despite struggles and trials, it always flickers back to life. Cino’s scientific description of the sun sets a tone for the concept of inner value to be treated as fact, bolstering the messages of self-acceptance and appreciation with an aura of authority. But the text also has a comforting cadence, couched in poetic descriptions with vocabulary-stretching words (such as emits and persistent) well placed for easy understanding. Saumell’s beautiful paintings feature well-lit backgrounds with clear, textured brush strokes. The images seem to follow one main child with fair skin and brown hair, growing from young to older into the adult years and grandparenthood. The bright colors are captivating, and lap readers will pore over the book’s pages.
A gorgeously rendered affirmation fueled by powerful metaphors to bolster self-love.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9798988925101
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whimspire Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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