A fun, laugh-out-loud journey through a child’s imagination with wacky illustrations—a delight for all.
A young girl takes her family along for a wild ride through her imagination as she dreams up increasingly weird—and hilarious—scenarios.
An unnamed little girl sits at the dinner table with her family. As her mother urges her to eat, the girl instead asks questions that always begin with the prompt, “Would it be weird….” For example, she wonders, “Would it be weird if my mouth was a piano? And then, every time I brushed my teeth, everyone would cheer and clap!” In response to these increasingly elaborate questions, the girl’s mother is always ready with a response: “Yes, that wouldbe weird…. Wewould be so proud of you! We would even find a dentist who fixes pianos.” After the little girl, who has medium brown skin and bright green eyes, exhausts her mother with her questions (that involve everything from sharks in an epic dance battle to Egyptian mummies in pursuit to alien makeovers), she gets ready for bed and realizes she has one more question…but this time, for her dad. Epelbaum’s illustrations include bold lines and bright colors, giving the book an almost comic book–style flair that’s endearingly absurd (like the family dog using its eye lasers to blast a giant anthropomorphic slice of pizza). Both the text and illustrations infuse the story with a joyous feeling. It’s ultimately an exuberant ode to childhood, creativity, and family, and a pleasure to read for kids and adults.
A fun, laugh-out-loud journey through a child’s imagination with wacky illustrations—a delight for all.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9781961166035
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Nextcore
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more.
A flurry of mail addressed to Duncan’s crayons ushers in the Christmas season in this novelty spinoff of the bestselling The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) and The Day the Crayons Came Home (2015).
Actual cards and letters are tucked into envelopelike pouches pasted to the pages; these are joined in some cases by other ephemera for a package that is likely to invite sudden, intense play followed by loss and/or damage that will render the book a disappointment to reread. That’s probably OK, as in contrast to the clever story that kicked this small series off, this outing has a hastily composed feel that lacks cohesion. The first letter is addressed to Peach from Mom and includes a paper doll of the “naked” (de-wrappered) crayon along with a selection of tabbed changes of clothing that includes a top hat and tails and a bikini top and bottom. Peach’s implied gender fluidity does not mitigate the unfortunate association of peach with skin color established in the first book. The sense of narrative improvisation is cemented with an early page turn that takes the crayons from outdoors snow play to “Feeling…suddenly very Christmas-y, the crayons headed inside.” Readers can unpack a box of punch-out decorations; a recipe for gluten-free Christmas cookies that begins “go to store and buy gluten-free cookies”; a punch-out dreidel (turns out Grey is Jewish); a board game (“six-sided die” not included); and a map of Esteban (aka Pea Green) and Neon Red’s travels with Santa.
Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more. (Novelty. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51574-6
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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