This book proclaims what children already know: Creativity and making art spark joy.
An adult artist celebrates child artists.
A multicolored creature—a dragon or perhaps a dinosaur—creatively ablaze, enlivens a city with her art. As third-person narrator, author/illustrator Vere speaks for child artists who may not be able to articulate what it’s like to create. He also helps child artists understand, appreciate, and validate themselves. He gets kid artists and their imperative to create, and he draws like them, too: Check out the colorful, boldly imaginative, dynamic, quirky, and wonderfully child-appealing illustrations herein. Bonus: Vere also speaks to parents, caregivers, teachers, and librarians who will share this volume with kids to offer perspective on and to help them respect and accept child artists and value their creative processes and masterpieces. If this seems philosophical and lofty, the soothing text and lively art will change minds. Kids will note illustrations they could have produced—and that’s the point. Plus, they’ll love that the protagonist makes a very common childhood artistic faux pas: She colors outside the lines! But, narrator Vere assures his artist-hero: “Mistakes are how you learn! Heart is what matters. And your art is full of heart….Please paint again!” His final encouragement for all child artists: “Keep seeing the beauty…keep going!” Understanding adults know children need such incentives to continue creating, to keep imaginations buzzing, and to use whatever media they desire to portray the world as they see it. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
This book proclaims what children already know: Creativity and making art spark joy. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-525-58087-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
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
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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