From a campfire lit by early humans to a campfire lit by a contemporary vacationing family, gathering together to share words and tales has always been in our DNA.
With just one sentence or phrase per illustration, Yaccarino gives voice to the many ways that humans have preserved, shared, and recorded their history through words and images. Sometimes the format is visual, as in cave paintings and picture writing. People around the world have also used papyrus, woodblocks, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, and plays to keep narratives alive. Pictures and words have been preserved in a wide variety of libraries and on movie, television, and computer screens. Spoken and written words have inspired and evoked strong emotional responses. Yaccarino uses India ink on vellum to create memorable, full-bleed and paneled illustrations. One double-page spread depicts an assortment of folk from many cultures and of many colors walking and reading their tablets (and not looking where they are going!). It’s a fairly Eurocentric history; including such other traditions as Native American and West African griot storytelling would have strengthened the narrative. Sharp eyes will take note of the starry transition from cave people to contemporary folk as astrological signs reappear as constellations.
All in all, this is a good introduction to stories, books, and reading. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-241106-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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A class visits the pumpkin patch, giving readers a chance to count down from 20.
At the farm, Farmer Mixenmatch gives them the tour, which includes a petting zoo, an educational area, a corn maze and a tractor ride to the pumpkin patch. Holub’s text cleverly though not always successfully rhymes each child’s name within the line: “ ‘Eighteen kids get on our bus,’ says Russ. / ‘But someone’s late,’ says Kate. / ‘Wait for me!’ calls Kiri.” Pumpkins at the tops of pages contain the numerals that match the text, allowing readers to pair them with the orange-colored, spelled-out numbers. Some of the objects proffered to count are a bit of a stretch—“Guess sixteen things we’ll see,” count 14 cars that arrived at the farm before the bus—but Smith’s artwork keeps things easy to count, except for a challenging page that asks readers to search for 17 orange items (answers are at the bottom, upside down). Strangely, Holub includes one page with nothing to count—a sign marks “15 Pumpkin Street.” Charming, multicultural round-faced characters and lots of detail encourage readers to go back through the book scouring pages for the 16 things the kids guessed they might see. Endpapers featuring a smattering of pumpkin facts round out the text.
Between its autumn and field-trip themes and the fact that not many books start countdowns from 20, this may find its way to many library shelves. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8075-6660-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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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)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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