A roughly rhymed picture book about sadness that may help some young children develop empathy.
Sal and Al return to discuss sadness in Harmony’s third book about coping with emotions.
Al has a crying hippo who sits on his shoulder. Whenever something sad happens, the hippo is there, making it difficult for Al to function. But each time a new worry is added, Al realizes that his hippo, Jo, is getting heavier and heavier. At first, Al ignores the weight and lets Jo’s doubts creep in. Jo says that things will never get any better; Jo keeps Al sad when his dog dies, his best friend moves away, and the kids on the playground don’t offer to include him. “She tells me ‘There is no hope’ / At those times, I want to mope,” Al says. But when the sadness gets to be too much to bear, Al wisely gets advice from his father. By imagining what others feel like and why they might be sad, Al gets a valuable lesson in empathy. Al also uses his sadness and worry to motivate him to try harder; he decides to ignore Jo’s gloom-and-doom predictions and focus on getting a good grade on his take-home test. Like in earlier volumes in the series, the illustrations here are cartoonish; Al’s eyes are colored red throughout to make it look like he has been crying due to Jo’s influence. In this installment, sadness is shown in a slightly positive light: “it’s okay to feel sad sometimes,” offers Sal. “You can even learn from it or help others.” Activity pages encourage children to draw their own sad moment. A word search and maze are also included in the back, along with notes to parents with tips on how to help their children deal with too much sadness. As with earlier entries in the series, the rhyme schemes here are occasionally awkward or inconsistent: “My shoulders feel her weight / Especially of late, / As my best friend, Connor moved away. / Now Jo cries with me every day.”
A roughly rhymed picture book about sadness that may help some young children develop empathy.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-925420-01-2
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Prosperous Alliance Enterprise
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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