An engaging but rudimentary tale about jobs, showcasing Black parents who support their child’s aspirations.
A Black girl dreams of professions in alphabetical order in this picture book by a mother and daughter team.
Kingston, a girl with Afro puffs, explains that Career Day at her school featured people with all sorts of jobs. “The Activist is for the people. / The Banker really loves math,” she notes. Can Kingston be a teacher, just like her mom? “Dream, baby, dream, and you will see,” her parents say. As Kingston beams sweetly at their bedtime kisses, they leave her to envision her future: astronaut, basketball player, chef. Kingston’s dreams of Black professionals feature childlike adults, and the renderings of her job possibilities are simplified. A female chef stands in a kitchen as cookies bake, a male teacher lectures, a girl entrepreneur sells lemonade at a cardboard stand, and a short-haired librarian shelves books. But what is a kinesiologist? The picture shows a doctor with a hand on a patient’s knee. And what does a quahogger do? No clams are featured in the image. Adkins and Paj’s sketchy, cute digital pencil cartoons portray emotions and gestures effectively with a few lines—though as the alphabet proceeds, some professions prove harder to explain in a single image. Authors GirlKing and Kingston do not include any aftermatter that offers insights into job responsibilities. Nevertheless, parents seeking a simple visual starting place to discuss vocations may find the story’s brevity and cartoon shorthand appealing.
An engaging but rudimentary tale about jobs, showcasing Black parents who support their child’s aspirations.Pub Date: March 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-57-866771-3
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Early Morning Cocktail
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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