A sweet and child-sensitive addition to any picture-book collection.
Hector and his classmates learn about collecting.
Hector admires the acorns he collects over the course of the fall, so much so that he stores his treasures in his desk. He’s momentarily embarrassed when his teacher discovers them and his classmates laugh, but his clever teacher turns this into an opportunity, letting him show and tell, asking classmates about their own collections, and making connections to libraries and museums. Graegin’s sketched and shaded drawings, digitally manipulated, colored, and combined, work well in support of this friendly fable. Mammals of all sorts populate Hector’s world. The protagonist looks something like a grizzly bear cub; his teacher is a giraffe, and his classmates are of many different species. All wear clothes but no shoes; careful readers may identify them by their feet. Hector’s collection, pictured on the front endpapers as well as in the text, is nicely varied. As he admires each one, textual similes are supported by the art: he carries a green apple along with the pair that are apple green; he finds another, “golden and smooth like polished stone,” in a pot with stones. There are vignettes, full-page images, and spreads in pleasing variety. The final endpapers include other collectibles. The author’s note ends with her point: “Every collection is different. Every collection is the same. Just like all of us.”
A sweet and child-sensitive addition to any picture-book collection. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-296-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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