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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam—but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. But the rock that Abiyoyo obligingly flings aside smashes the wand. How to avoid Abiyoyo’s destruction now? Sing the monster to sleep, then make it a peaceful, tree-planting member of the community, of course. Seeger sums it up in a postscript: “every community must learn to manage its giants.” Hays, who illustrated the original (1986), creates colorful, if unfinished-looking, scenes featuring a notably multicultural human cast and a towering Cubist fantasy of a giant. The song, based on a Xhosa lullaby, still has that hard-to-resist sing-along potential, and the themes of waging peace, collective action, and the benefits of sound ecological practices are presented in ways that children will both appreciate and enjoy. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83271-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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