Skillfully provides the language to help readers remember—or learn—their abilities to treat themselves and others with...
A diverse cast of children speak kindly to themselves, practice self-care, and display gratitude.
The narrative of this book is written like a pep talk one could imagine hearing from a person with fully realized emotional intelligence. Growth mindset, positive self-talk, resilience, empathy, perspective-taking, and other learned skills from the domain of social-emotional learning are demonstrated through first-person action statements. A brown-skinned child looks in the mirror: “I’m going to give myself the same love and kindness that I give the people I love.” A clearly disappointed, light-skinned child is cuddled in the lap of a caring adult: “When cheering myself up doesn’t help, I try not to keep feelings inside.” A dark-skinned girl with textured hair practices martial arts: “Sometimes loving me means I stand up for myself.” Many strategies for exhibiting self-love chosen by the child protagonists employing them are shown as valid, reinforcing that there is no one perfect way, just as there is no one perfect person. Zivoin’s illustration style is expressive and playful, but her mood can feel melancholic at times. The occasional series of vignettes on white space alleviates this sense with much-needed breathing room.
Skillfully provides the language to help readers remember—or learn—their abilities to treat themselves and others with gentleness. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4338-3028-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
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