Upbeat, rhyming, rhythmic but ultimately slight entertainment.
A newborn dino falls from a tree and wakes up a rapping machine.
This light tale largely follows his trip to the hospital and the many tests he must endure while his sobbing, distressed parents look on. One look at the title and cover, which features a backward-hat–wearing dino kid, and potential readers will understand that there will be no way to read this, whether aloud or to oneself, without rapping. Some verses work better than others, however, with regard to rhythm, rhyme and sensibility (mind, the trip to the hospital is not due to the fall but because he can’t stop rapping afterward). “My parents freaked out; / they didn’t know what to do. / Should they take me to the doctor? / Or take me to the zoo? // They rushed me to the hospital; / the ambulance was screaming. / The nurse gave me a Popsicle; / I thought that I was dreaming!” Even through all the diagnostic testing, Rappy is enthusiastic about his rapping ability, celebrating what makes him different. Bowers’ brightly colored acrylic illustrations focus on the anthropomorphized dinos with their expressive faces and exuberant clothing. Many dino species are featured as medical staff, none of them scary, so those looking for a distraction for children anxious about upcoming medical tests will find it here.
Upbeat, rhyming, rhythmic but ultimately slight entertainment. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-229180-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
It doesn’t take a fortune teller to predict the laughter that will emanate from this world of tomorrow.
The future is now…and it’s exceedingly silly.
“This book is from the future.” What are things like there? Barnett enlightens readers: “The sun is called the moon and the moon is called the sun.” Readers learn that apples no longer exist (Barnett doesn’t explain why), that lots of people are named “Charlie Cheese Face” (“There’s an interesting reason why, but we don’t have time for that story”), and that instead of “goodbye,” people now say, “You smell like a baby!” The work closes with a ridiculous conversation between two characters who somehow manage to work in most of the new terms. This tale’s raison d’être seems to be coming up with the goofiest alternatives to normal day-to-day terms and interactions. Barnett gets seriously silly as he thinks up gags ideal for reading aloud at storytime. As for Harris’ art, aside from the occasional cool pair of sunglasses or hair dye, the future feels pretty early-21st-century; his colorful ink and gouache illustrations are rife with visual gags. Futuristic terms look as if they were printed on a label maker. Human characters vary in skin tone.
It doesn’t take a fortune teller to predict the laughter that will emanate from this world of tomorrow. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9798217033171
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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