by Hanoch Piven & Shira Hecht-Koller ; illustrated by Hanoch Piven ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023
An amazing, joyous achievement.
An unusual, fascinating blueprint for living a good, happy life.
The book assumes familiarity with Old Testament personages, but carefully constructed retellings allow them to be seen in new and different ways. In fact, the audience is instructed to pay attention to the words and even closer attention to the art, created with stunning collages of found objects. Bright double-page spreads introduce the characters, followed by very brief moral mantras. The text speaks directly to readers, zeroing in on exploits, adventures, or life works and putting forth unusual interpretations or twists. Children are urged to “Be Curious” like Eve, shown with a magnifying glass for an eye and billowing hair made of tiles with numbers and Hebrew letters, while a leopard-skin snake slithers out from a frame of plastic food (for thought). Noah, with an oven mitt face, stands on a cork ark carrying plastic animals as a dove made from a white glove flies overhead. Moses’ hair and beard are matzah pieces. Miriam’s face is a tambourine, and other characters show a wide variety of “skin” tones. Every tale is a bit of earnest fancy with an incredible variety of highly detailed worlds. Readers and their grown-ups will examine, peruse, and discuss it all again and again, with some ideas remaining ever mysterious. “Trust the Journey,” “Dream Big,” “Laugh Yourself Silly,” and “Feel Your Power.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An amazing, joyous achievement. (more about the characters, authors’ note) (Religious picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780374390105
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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by Amanda Gorman ; illustrated by Loveis Wise ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 7, 2025
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it.
Former National Youth Poet Laureate Gorman invites girls to raise their voices and make a difference.
“Today, we finally have a say,” proclaims the first-person plural narration as three girls (one presents Black, another is brown-skinned, and the third is light-skinned) pass one another marshmallows on a stick around a campfire. In Wise’s textured, almost three-dimensional illustrations, the trio traverse fantastical, often abstract landscapes, playing, demonstrating, eating, and even flying, while confident rhymes sing their praises and celebrate collective female victories. The phrase “LIBERATION. FREEDOM. RESPECT” appears on a protest sign that bookends their journey. Simple and accessible, the rhythmic visual storytelling presents an optimistic vision of young people working toward a better world. Sometimes family members or other diverse comrades surround the girls, emphasizing that power comes from community. Gorman is careful to specify that “some of us go by she / And some of us go by they.” She affirms, too, that each person is “a different shape and size,” though the art doesn’t show much variation in body type. Characters also vary in ability. Real-life figures emerge as the girls dream of past luminaries such as author Octavia Butler and activist Marsha P. Johnson, along with present-day role models including poet and journalist Plestia Alaqad and athlete Sha’carri Richardson; silhouettes stand in for heroines as yet unknown. Imagining that “we are where change is going” is hopeful indeed.
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593624180
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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by Amanda Gorman ; illustrated by Christian Robinson
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by Andrew Knapp ; illustrated by Andrew Knapp ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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by Andrew Knapp ; photographed by Andrew Knapp
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