A solid but ultimately unexciting entry in the who’s-the-beast genre.
A beast-girl and a girl-beast become friends in a hairy landscape.
“Alma’s day began like any other.” The big-eyed galumph covered in flowing gray fur picks “one butter breakfast tulip” and tends to her trees that are in need of braiding, the grass that needs combing, and the roof that needs a pat. Alma is sitting in her garden, a white “plumpooshkie butterfly” perched on her head, when a “little beast” comes to disturb her. Readers will quickly realize that the “beast” is a child like themselves, a very prim white girl in a yellow dress, but “Alma was frightened. She had never seen a hairless, button-nose beast before!” The girl, Mala, shouts that she is “TERRIBLY, TREMENDOUSLY, STUPENDOUSLY LOST,” and after some hesitation, Alma decides to help. The two become friends (Alma confused about the hairlessness of the girl’s environment), and “Mala’s day ended like any other.” Busy, lush paintings illustrate the strangeness of Alma’s thoroughly furred world, contrasting with the slightly long but well-paced and neatly structured story. While the overarching conceit—getting children to question their definition of “beast”—is clever, the meat of the story is somewhat lacking; tepid prose and weak characterization mean that most of the story is carried by the rich illustrations and the assumptions about beasts and not-beasts.
A solid but ultimately unexciting entry in the who’s-the-beast genre. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-6396-3
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their...
Ruby is an adventurous and happy child until the day she discovers a Worry.
Ruby barely sees the Worry—depicted as a blob of yellow with a frowny unibrow—at first, but as it hovers, the more she notices it and the larger it grows. The longer Ruby is affected by this Worry, the fewer colors appear on the page. Though she tries not to pay attention to the Worry, which no one else can see, ignoring it prevents her from enjoying the things that she once loved. Her constant anxiety about the Worry causes the bright yellow blob to crowd Ruby’s everyday life, which by this point is nearly all washes of gray and white. But at the playground, Ruby sees a boy sitting on a bench with a growing sky-blue Worry of his own. When she invites the boy to talk, his Worry begins to shrink—and when Ruby talks about her own Worry, it also grows smaller. By the book’s conclusion, Ruby learns to control her Worry by talking about what worries her, a priceless lesson for any child—or adult—conveyed in a beautifully child-friendly manner. Ruby presents black, with hair in cornrows and two big afro-puff pigtails, while the boy has pale skin and spiky black hair.
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their feelings (. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0237-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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