The newest in the I See the Sun… series is a paean to American diversity.
During a trip to Mount Rushmore, Stella, a biracial girl with a white mother and Indian-American father, explores how her family differs from others, including: a transracial-transnational adoptive Alabama family with two white moms; a black family from Massachusetts; and a multigenerational, white Iowan family. Stilted, lengthy, first-person narration details her observations and fails in earnest efforts to affirm pluralism. The book presents family trees with inadequately contextualized lineages and later delivers a ham-fisted treatment of Native peoples and history. On the latter note, Stella’s father tells her that “the Lakotas really own the Black Hills where Mt. Rushmore is. The Black Hills are sacred to the tribe, but the United States government won’t allow them to perform their ceremonies there anymore.” This reads as a simplistic aside, since their subsequent trip to the Lakota reservation where she meets a girl named Martha never expands on this cursory commentary about American settler colonialism. The closing, in which Stella’s mother sings “This Land Is Your Land” as a celebration of American diversity, provides a final, resounding note of erasure and insensitivity to Native peoples. The story is followed by backmatter that embraces the fraught term “melting pot” and never acknowledges the tension between American ideals and its history of colonialism and slavery, although it does comment with regret on the rise of nationalism following the 2016 presidential election.
Well-intended—but woefully inadequate to its task. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-935874-36-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Satya House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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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 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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How do you make a new friend when an old one moves away?
Buddy (from Sorry, Grown-Ups, You Can’t Go to School, 2019, etc.) is feeling lonely. His best friend just moved across town. To make matters worse, there is a field trip coming up, and Buddy needs a bus partner. His sister, Lady, has some helpful advice for making a new pal: “You just need to find something you have in common.” Buddy loves the game Robo Chargers and karate. Surely there is someone else who does, too! Unfortunately, there isn’t. However, when a new student arrives (one day later) and asks everyone to call her Sunny instead of Alison, Buddy gets excited. No one uses his given name, either; they just call him Buddy. He secretly whispers his “real, official name” to Sunny at lunch—an indication that a true friendship is being formed. The rest of the story plods merrily along, all pieces falling exactly into place (she even likes Robo Chargers!), accompanied by Bowers’ digital art, a mix of spot art and full-bleed illustrations. Friendship-building can be an emotionally charged event in a child’s life—young readers will certainly see themselves in Buddy’s plight—but, alas, there is not much storytelling magic to be found. Buddy and his family are White, Sunny and Mr. Teacher are Black, and Buddy’s other classmates are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Making friends isn’t always this easy and convenient. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-30709-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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