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SHINE

Name: SHINE
Author: Dagny Griffin
ISBN: 978-1-4964-3749-5

A WORDLESS BOOK ABOUT LOVE

by Dagny Griffin ; illustrated by Laura Bobbiesi ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2020

A sweet message lost in a rather confusing storyboard.

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A wordless picture book ponders love.

Mia, a white girl with auburn hair, rises in the morning, says a little prayer (Matthew 5:14), reads a book, and then puts on her colorful scarf to greet the gray world outside. A rainbow wash of color emanating from her feet is symbolic of love as it spreads to others she encounters along her path, bringing brightness and life to her world. It begins with a simple friendly greeting to a friend across the street, but her light soon grabs others as well. Each day she heads out into the world with a different article of cozy clothing, the only real hint at a timeline, and spreads love to yet another person she encounters until the whole neighborhood is no longer gray and sad but vibrant. Her transitions from the street to the inside of her home are abrupt and seemingly inexplicable. One moment she is outside meeting someone new while headed nowhere in particular, the next she’s back home, then bundling up to head out the door again. Equally confusing are the relationships among Mia and the other characters: Are these friends, family members, or perfect strangers met out on the street? Though the watercolor illustrations have a cozy vintage feel reminiscent of Quentin Blake’s, each spread seems to stand on its own rather than contributing to a narrative whole.

A sweet message lost in a rather confusing storyboard. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: March 3, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-4964-3749-5

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Tyndale House

Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION

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SPAGHETTI HEAD & CHICKEN FINGERS

by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal ; illustrated by Erica Salcedo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2026

Wild and wacky.

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A picture book from the comedy duo known as Rhett & Link, creators of the online juggernaut Good Mythical Morning.

Lumo is obsessed with chicken fingers; Saffy, who is new to town and anxious about starting school, finds comfort in the only food she likes: buttered spaghetti. The night before the first day of school, a thunderstorm rages, and each kid makes a wish—“to have chicken fingers at school,” in Lumo’s case; Saffy wishes for “the first thing off the top of her head: buttered spaghetti.” File under “Be careful what you wish for.” Lumo’s and Saffy’s respective physical changes (chicken fingers for fingers, spaghetti for hair) make navigating school a challenge but bring them together in the cafeteria, where they enjoy some new foods—and their new friendship. The plotting could have been sharper: Why do the kids’ bodies suddenly return to normal? And couldn’t the authors have thought up a less old-hat story-ending punch line? Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Neal get by on their charm, and the plot sets up some funny visuals. Salcedo’s cartoony Photoshop art features well-chosen artifacts from a typical kid’s life and captures the mortification of not fitting in, which will be familiar even to readers who have never experienced breaded fingers or noodle hair. Lumo is brown-skinned and dark-haired; Saffy is pale-skinned with disheveled reddish-brown hair.

Wild and wacky. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: June 16, 2026

ISBN: 9780063474154

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperPop/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)