Yawn. Skip the text and stick with the illustrations—the result is more entertaining.
A slim, didactic text is somewhat redeemed by lively, inventive illustrations.
Stella and Sidney are twins and playmates whose momentary tussle over a bouncy ball leads to a surprising dead-on blow to the full moon in the sky and the children’s search for a replacement for the moon. Each spread is filled with Yarlett’s intriguing digital art, with small details, hints of collage, some hand-lettering throughout and plenty of kinetic perspectives. A double gatefold (Sidney and Stella’s front door) opens to a crowded street scene where the suddenly absent moon is big news, with missing posters, vendors with moon balloons and bewildered astronauts among the multitudes. Weaknesses in the textual narrative seem like the result of trying to do too many things. The hand-lettered caption “[f]eeding the quacks*” in the opening double-page illustration of the pair throwing bread into a pond is accompanied by the explanatory “*ducks” just below—but as the protagonists turn out to be older than toddlers and the silliness isn’t repeated, the humor seems flat. Readers are quizzed rhetorically about “one thing that Stella and Sidney did not do together.” “I wonder what that could be?” leads to telling, barely showing, that the twins “did not SHARE.”
Yawn. Skip the text and stick with the illustrations—the result is more entertaining. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6623-1
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads.
Emma deals with jitters before playing the guitar in the school talent show.
Pop musician Kevin Jonas and his wife, Danielle, put performance at the center of their picture-book debut. When Emma is intimidated by her very talented friends, the encouragement of her younger sister, Bella, and the support of her family help her to shine her own light. The story is straightforward and the moral familiar: Draw strength from your family and within to overcome your fears. Employing the performance-anxiety trope that’s been written many times over, the book plods along predictably—there’s nothing really new or surprising here. Dawson’s full-color digital illustrations center a White-presenting family along with Emma’s three friends of color: Jamila has tanned skin and wears a hijab; Wendy has dark brown skin and Afro puffs; and Luis has medium brown skin. Emma’s expressive eyes and face are the real draw of the artwork—from worry to embarrassment to joy, it’s clear what she’s feeling. A standout double-page spread depicts Emma’s talent show performance, with a rainbow swirl of music erupting from an amp and Emma rocking a glam outfit and electric guitar. Overall, the book reads pretty plainly, buoyed largely by the artwork. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35207-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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