A glowing tribute to family across distance and lineage.
A Native child navigates familial joys and heartaches.
Each year, 7-year-old Piper and her cousins spend a month on the border of the Cherokee and Muscogee nations, visiting family on both tribal lands. As they revel in summer fun, they deepen their connection to their Indigenous heritage by fishing, eating grape dumplings, listening to the stories of their elders, and learning to speak Mvskoke. On hot nights, older cousins teach younger ones the word for firefly: koleppa. Back home in Kansas City, Piper finds herself missing her cousins, but she becomes fast friends with a new neighbor, 4-year-old Sumi, who is brown-skinned and of Indian descent. The two bond over the course of a year, and when Piper learns that she and her family are moving to Topeka, she protests, “I want to stay here, next door to Sumi. She’s my family, too.” Grief eventually gives way to joy as Sumi accompanies Piper on her summer visit; Piper, in turn, travels with Sumi and her family to India. Focusing on seemingly small yet meaningful moments, Gardiner’s (Nipmuck) tender, earth-toned gouache and colored pencil images evoke the poignance of interconnection, both its delights and sorrows. The visuals complement Smith’s (Muscogee) quiet narrative, combining for a lovely tale that honors Native heritage and the beauty of both blood and chosen families.
A glowing tribute to family across distance and lineage. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780063274440
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Heartdrum
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
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
BOOK REVIEW
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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