Thought-provoking questions, fun activities, and insightful imagery mark this book as one that may be particularly useful in...
Debut author/illustrator Harmony, an Australian psychiatrist, offers children a way to identify their anger and lessons on how to control it in this rhyming, series-opening picture book.
Young Al has a dragon in his pocket. When the boy gets angry, he says, Kanga, the dragon, “breathes fire into my head and belly”—a wonderful way to describe how fuzzy one’s thinking can get and how uncomfortable one’s stomach can feel when anger takes over. When people don’t listen to Al, he stomps and screams. When his brother steals his candy or his sister cheats at a game, he blows up, and when his parents tell him “no” or he keeps making the same mistake on his homework, Kanga rears his (actually quite cute) head. After his sister breaks down in tears and his parents yell at him because of his anger, however, he feels contrite: “I forget what it’s like for those close by / When I explode, and feel my brain will fry.” He apologizes and decides to make a change, pledging to always count to 10 before he reacts in anger. Once Al gets control of his dragon, the book concludes with coloring and drawing pages and a word search for young, independent readers as well as notes for parents that offer concise steps to help kids deal with anger: “Leave,” “Breathe,” and “Speak.” Overall, the concepts and the visualization of the dragon, are excellent and will appeal to readers who have trouble coping with emotional challenges. The illustrations are simplistic, and characters’ proportions are more free-form than lifelike, but the book’s seek-and-find aspect, which encourages children to locate Kanga on each page, will delight readers on the younger end of its target audience. However, the rhyme scheme, though consistent, never achieves an easy flow: “Meet my pet dragon, Kanga, he lives in my pocket. / He sticks out his head when I’m angry as a rocket.” Other parts of the text are spot-on, though; for example, Al compares his homework frustrations to “sinking in a lake,” because, despite his hard work, he never seems to progress.
Thought-provoking questions, fun activities, and insightful imagery mark this book as one that may be particularly useful in schools.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-925420-00-5
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Nil
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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