New readers thirsty for series fiction will look forward to more stories about Jasmine and her family.
Eight-year-old Japanese-American Jasmine Toguchi is tired of having to follow in the footsteps of her older sister, Sophie, who gets to do everything first.
The extended Toguchi family gathers each year to celebrate New Year’s Day. Some, like mean cousin Eddie and his family, just have to drive down from San Francisco. But beloved Obaachan flies all the way from Hiroshima, Japan. Sophie and Eddie, being the older cousins, are excited about the roles they will play this year, namely to help out with the preparations for mochi, a sweet and sticky rice dessert that traditionally is pounded by the men of the family and shaped by the women. This strikes Jasmine as unfair, so she sets out to prove to her family that she is strong enough to join in the task herself. She takes it upon herself to strengthen her muscles with weight lifting (with the baby cousins!) and hanging by her arms, but nothing seems to work. It’s a thin plotline with little tension, but to populate it, Florence paints a lovely picture of a warm, extended family whose members truly care about one another and take each other seriously. Black-and-white sketches, liberally sprinkled through 13 short, easy-to-read chapters, help make the story understandable for the newest readers. Children looking for a window into a Japanese-American family and its New Year’s customs will surely find one here. Book 2, Jasmine Toguchi, Super Sleuth, publishes simultaneously and perhaps will more fully develop its plot now that this effort has introduced the characters. A recipe for mochi is included.
New readers thirsty for series fiction will look forward to more stories about Jasmine and her family. (Fiction. 5-9)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-30410-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
A celebration of the first 100 days starring a boy brimming with personality.
The first 100 days of school are a really big deal.
Harry Bergen-Murphy, age 5, is starting first grade but doesn’t feel ready. As described in “Day 1” (chapters contain multiple days, each labeled), Mommy and Charlotte, Harry’s older sister, help him face “big-kid school” on his first day. Details of the subsequent 99 days are incorporated, journal-style, into the novel’s 19 chapters and narrated in third person, present tense, providing a nice sense of immediacy. As the days proceed, Harry makes friends (and becomes a great one himself); figures out silent “E” and aces sight words; creates pompom monsters; articulates uncomfortable emotions; overcomes a fear of guinea pigs; devises an ingenious way to bring 100 items to the 100th-day celebration; and much more. Abetted by loving family, kind teachers, and close friends, Harry blossoms into one terrific kid. Readers will love joining him on this realistic, comical, heartwarming journey. Frequent references to puke and boogers enhance the humor in this captivating tale, written with keen awareness for the way kids speak, think, and behave. Oswald’s full-color illustrations depict Harry and family as white; Harry’s best friend has brown skin. Other adults and classmates appear with diverse skin tones, hair styles, and hair colors. A female crossing guard wears a hijab; some characters wear glasses.
A celebration of the first 100 days starring a boy brimming with personality. (author’s note) (Fiction. 5-8)Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-64471-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Random
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Cuter as a child-narrated video, but the message is worthy enough to justify this less-evanescent medium.
How and why a symbol of exclusion can be transformed into just the opposite.
The circle is depicted literally in the illustrations but regarded as metaphorical in the unpolished if earnest rhyme. It begins as a mark “on the ground [drawn] along each shoe” (and then, according to the picture, around toes and heels) as “a safe little place for just one person.” But that makes no more sense that a library with “just one book”—and so it should be expanded to include family, friends, and ultimately the whole world: “In the circles all around us / everywhere that we all go / there’s a difference we can make / and a love we can all show.” Expanding on the Instagram video from which this is spun, the simply drawn art shows one button-eyed, pale-skinned child with a piece of chalk drawing and redrawing an increasingly large circle that first lets in a sibling and their interracial parents, then relatives (including another interracial couple), then larger groups (diverse in age and skin tone, including one child in a wheelchair and one wearing a hijab). In subsequent views figures mix and match in various combinations with interlocking circles of their own while waving personal flags here (“I only like SPORTS!”; “I’m Team CAKE!”) and sharing doughnuts there until a closing invitation to regard “wonder-eyed” our beaming, encircled planet. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)
Cuter as a child-narrated video, but the message is worthy enough to justify this less-evanescent medium. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-32318-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
