Simply wonderful, and a balm for these troubled times.
Distilled text and images rife with examples celebrate the importance of creating.
Ejaita’s narrative is a marvel of pithy economy. “Let’s look around and make some art. / We find ideas for what to make, / and ideas for what to use.” The author/illustrator examines the physicality and multitudinous methods of making art, as well as the interrelationship between the work and the makers’ emotions. She’s adamant on one point: “We cannot make art without / listening to our feelings. // We put our feelings into the art, / and feel the art in our body.” Making art can elicit happiness but also sadness and fear; in one scene, a muralist with spray paint, presumably out of environmental concern, creates images of animals with teardrops on building walls. Laudably, Ejaita acknowledges the difficulties artists face and the need for patience in both finding ideas and bringing one’s concepts to fruition. She examines inspiration and the inherent pleasure of sharing art with others yet celebrates the notion of keeping some work “as a treasure for yourself.” Her illustrations brim with joyous color and activity as diverse children stitch, repurpose found objects, listen to and make music, break-dance, create collages, think, write, and more. Characters vary in skin color, from black and brown to pink and the gold, blue, and purple of the page background. A lovely message of unity and gratitude concludes the piece, and decorated endpapers complete it.
Simply wonderful, and a balm for these troubled times. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593660157
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Sure to have little ones giggling.
Jacques is a hedgehog with a big secret: “I wear real, bona fide underwear.”
Our narrator received a mysterious package one day; an illustration shows a pair of underwear tied to a balloon with a note “from the Universe” floating down into Jacques’ burrow. Hedgehogs don’t wear underwear, however. Will Jacques be shunned? Jacques worries but comes to a decision: “I have to wear them. When I do I feel special.” Determined, Jacques, who’s been invited to a party, makes a dramatic entrance, with undies in hand. Jacques’ declaration (“I WEAR UNDERWEAR”) is met with remarks of dismay, before another hedgehog opens up about similar fears and shows off a pair of cowboy boots. More hedgehogs introduce themselves with their own confessions. The story ends with Jacques unveiling a painting of the underwear in a gallery filled with hedgehogs wearing all sorts of attire. Though the book is simple in plot, characters, and setting, it wins in its balance of bathroom humor, dramatic storytelling, and celebrations of individual expression. French words are peppered throughout, adding to the fun without detracting from the story for those unfamiliar with the language. The cartoonish illustrations brim with fun; Valdez relies heavily on geometric shapes (triangle noses for the hedgehogs; huge circles for their eyes). Details such as speech bubbles and recurring turtle and snake characters contribute to the outlandish humor.
Sure to have little ones giggling. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781250814388
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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