A fun introduction to Pilates motions.
A girl sneakily teaches dubious woodland animals to learn some Pilates moves in Chevallier’s picture book about trying new things.
Peachy-skinned, strawberry-haired Andrea wants to share her love of Pilates, but when she offers a class for the woodland creatures, no one shows up. Soon, Raccoon stops by to see what she’s doing and professes, “Pilates seems silly—I’ll never do it.” Thinking quickly, Andrea suggests playing with a balloon instead and surreptitiously teaches Raccoon a Pilates move. Soon, other animals join, each with different excuses for why they’ll never do Pilates: Squirrel thinks it sounds too hard, Fox thinks Andrea means “pie and lattes,” Rabbit only wants to play if it involves carrots, and Bear feels too old to try a new thing. Andrea accepts each protest but suggests a new movement to each animal—then reveals at the end that those movements were Pilates. Though the story revolves around Andrea telling fibs, her ways of getting around the animals’ objections to introduce them to something fun work well, illustrating how trying a new thing can be very rewarding. Chevallier’s brief text on each page uses accessible vocabulary, making the book well suited to newly independent readers. Argirova’s cartoon illustrations effectively capture both the joyful silliness of animals doing Pilates while ably demonstrating the poses. A description of Pilates moves in the end pages encourages readers to try the exercises at home.
A fun introduction to Pilates motions.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781960157508
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bookfox Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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
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