A holiday vignette for kids that gently emphasizes a theme of universal friendship.
In author Cummings and illustrator Mosley’s children’s narrative, two boys’ families come together for a Christmas celebration, and the boys are rewarded by a visit from Santa Claus.
The writer-illustrator team follow up their book In the Nick of Time (2019) with another title set during the December holidays. Prior familiarity with the first book is not necessary to follow the simple action in this one. The two young main characters return in the installment, which, like the first, involves Santa Claus. Nick Saint, who’s Black, is best friends with Cooper, a White boy his own age, and Nick’s home hosts Cooper and some of their neighbors for a Christmas Eve open-house celebration that also includes elements of Kwanzaa and Hanukkah. The merry soirée is a hit, and Cooper sleeps over, as planned, on the couch. In the middle of the night, Cooper is “startled by a thud at the bottom of the chimney. All Cooper saw were black boots surrounded by a cloud of dust.” After looking closer, Cooper wakes up Nick, concerned, as he thinks that the man he saw can’t be Santa, because he’s Black, and he’s never seen a Black Santa before. “My Santa is Black,” responds Nick. Soon, the boys have an awestruck meeting with the kindly Santa himself. He loves the homemade cookies that the family left out for him, and he leaves a note behind after his departure, commending the young pals and noting that “the world needs your message of friendship.”
The upbeat conclusion, featuring the missive from Santa Claus, is the only part of the story that features rhyming verse; in it, Santa points out that “Santa always looks like love,” and “love comes in all shapes and colors,” making it clear that Father Christmas can have a wide range of appearances. It also reminds the boys to not “waste one minute of the day / worrying about things people say about skin or color. / There are more important things to spend time on like, / spreading hope, / and taking care of one another.” The rest of the story is told in pleasantly conversational prose that meshes well with Mosley’s fruitcake-bright and festive full-color artwork. The narrative is uncomplicated, but it makes for an inclusive, conflict-free heart-warmer of a tale. At the end of the book, the creators explain that this book is a rarity in children’s literature, as it is a collaboration between a Black writer and a Black illustrator. Some readers may wish that the story featured larger speaking roles for Black female characters, although Nick’s mother does make an appearance. An easy-to-follow recipe for Nickydoodles, a baked treat that Nick’s mother makes during the story featuring toffee candy bars and ground cinnamon, is certain to have a great deal of appeal for young readers—just as it does for both Cooper and Santa over the course of the story itself.
Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2022
ISBN: 9781951218324
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Make A Way Media, LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite.
Humpty Dumpty, classically portrayed as an egg, recounts what happened after he fell off the wall in Santat’s latest.
An avid ornithophile, Humpty had loved being atop a high wall to be close to the birds, but after his fall and reassembly by the king’s men, high places—even his lofted bed—become intolerable. As he puts it, “There were some parts that couldn’t be healed with bandages and glue.” Although fear bars Humpty from many of his passions, it is the birds he misses the most, and he painstakingly builds (after several papercut-punctuated attempts) a beautiful paper plane to fly among them. But when the plane lands on the very wall Humpty has so doggedly been avoiding, he faces the choice of continuing to follow his fear or to break free of it, which he does, going from cracked egg to powerful flight in a sequence of stunning spreads. Santat applies his considerable talent for intertwining visual and textual, whimsy and gravity to his consideration of trauma and the oft-overlooked importance of self-determined recovery. While this newest addition to Santat’s successes will inevitably (and deservedly) be lauded, younger readers may not notice the de-emphasis of an equally important part of recovery: that it is not compulsory—it is OK not to be OK.
A validating and breathtaking next chapter of a Mother Goose favorite. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-682-6
Page Count: 45
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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