The book is potentially useful as a discussion starter about feelings, but kids probably won’t demand rereads.
An elementary-age child recounts what she does and feels during a school field trip to a county fair.
Clean, colorful graphic design, first-person narration, and short declarative sentences bode well for the inaugural entry in the Dealing with Feelings series. The narrator is a wide-eyed girl with brown skin and textured, black hair, and her fellow students represent every possible complexion. The teacher is also brown, with straight hair. However, much of the story itself seems contrived to elicit a variety of feelings in the narrator. Would a teacher enter a pie-eating contest while supervising a field trip? Unlikely, but it does give the class a chance to cheer her on. Similarly, a contest to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar gives the narrator a chance to compare her feelings to the rainbow of colors in the jar. When the class stops to purchase treats at a bake sale “to support a good cause,” the heroine can’t indulge because she has allergies. Conveniently, the teacher reveals that she also has allergies. A mindfulness activity on the bus and a review of what produced the child’s positive feelings makes it clear that teaching emotional vocabulary is the book’s primary mission. Even 17 exclamation points can’t make this well-meaning lesson exciting.
The book is potentially useful as a discussion starter about feelings, but kids probably won’t demand rereads. (Early reader. 4-6)Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63565-057-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Rodale Kids
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Though books on childhood anxiety are numerous, it is worth making space on the shelf for this one.
Brock may be dressed like a superhero, but he sure doesn’t feel like one, as social anxieties threaten to rain on his fun .
Juan’s superhero-themed birthday party is about to start, but Brock is feeling trepidatious about attending without his brother as his trusty sidekick. His costume does not fit quite right, and he is already running late, and soon Brock is “way past worried.” When he arrives at the party he takes some deep breaths but is still afraid to jump in and so hides behind a tree. Hiding in the same tree is the similarly nervous Nelly, who’s new to the neighborhood. Through the simple act of sharing their anxieties, the children find themselves ready to face their fears. This true-to-life depiction of social anxiety is simply but effectively rendered. While both Nelly and Brock try taking deep breathes to calm their anxieties without success, it is the act of sharing their worries in a safe space with someone who understands that ultimately brings relief. With similar themes, Brock’s tale would make a lovely companion for Tom Percival’s Ruby Finds a Worry (2019) on social-emotional–development bookshelves. Brock is depicted with black hair and tan skin, Nelly presents White, and peers at the party appear fairly diverse.
Though books on childhood anxiety are numerous, it is worth making space on the shelf for this one. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8075-8686-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
Low grade.
A gray character tries to write an all-gray book.
The six primary and secondary colors are building a rainbow, each contributing the hue of their own body, and Gray feels forlorn and left out because rainbows contain no gray. So Gray—who, like the other characters, has a solid, triangular body, a doodle-style face, and stick limbs—sets off alone to create “the GRAYest book ever.” His book inside a book shows a peaceful gray cliff house near a gray sea with gentle whitecaps; his three gray characters—hippo, wolf, kitten—wait for their arc to begin. But then the primaries arrive and call the gray scene “dismal, bleak, and gloomy.” The secondaries show up too, and soon everyone’s overrunning Gray’s creation. When Gray refuses to let White and Black participate, astute readers will note the flaw: White and black (the colors) had already been included in the early all-gray spreads. Ironically, Gray’s book within a book displays calm, passable art while the metabook’s unsubtle illustrations and sloppy design make for cramped and crowded pages that are too busy to hold visual focus. The speech-bubble dialogue’s snappy enough (Blue calls people “dude,” and there are puns). A convoluted moral muddles the core artistic question—whether a whole book can be gray—and instead highlights a trite message about working together.
Low grade. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-4340-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
