by Hans Wilhelm ; illustrated by Hans Wilhelm ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2020
A solid (if a bit basic) primer.
Schoolyard animals take on a bully—with lemons.
While the other animal “boys and girls” like their classmate Max (a rabbit), Big Jim (a warthog) does not. He relentlessly steals Max’s “good lunch,” making Max cry. Max’s friends encourage multiple tactics to deal with this bully. First, Max simply avoids Big Jim. The bully still takes his lunch. Next, Max buys Big Jim a lemon ice as a peace offering. The bully dumps the beverage over Max’s head (he doesn’t like lemons). Outraged, Max rushes to fight Big Jim. The scuffle is short-lived—and lands Max in the branches of a lemon tree. But Max gets a sneaky idea. The next day, Big Jim steals Max’s lunch as always, but his teeth crunch on a big, citrusy surprise (“Yuck!!!!!!!!!!”). The victory has Max coining a new adage: “A lemon a day keeps the bully away.” But what about Big Jim? With a vocabulary of around 90 words and at most five lines of text per page (eight words per line), the text maintains accessibility to beginning readers. Wilhem’s cartoony watercolors are soft against the white backgrounds, adding a friendly quality even to the tense scenes. A scripted scenario about how to deal with a real-life bully in the backmatter expands upon the story’s lessons. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 62% of actual size.)
A solid (if a bit basic) primer. (Early reader. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3933-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016
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
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by Hoda Kotb ; illustrated by Chloe Dominique ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Pleasant enough but not particularly original.
Uplifting messages of positivity from the Today show anchor.
Hope springs eternal, so the saying goes. Kotb agrees, here delivering to children the cheery news that hope lives inside all of them and that whatever they might wish for can be theirs. All they need is a sunny outlook, and the possibilities for happy outcomes are virtually endless. Children’s dreams can be in-the-moment ones—like purple ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry—or more far-ranging ones, such as growing tall enough to reach that high shelf easily or for hair that’s long enough to braid. It doesn’t matter, the author reassures young readers. Your aspirations will be realized, so don’t give up on them—just keep believing in them and, most of all, in yourself. Throughout, Kotb calls hope a rainbow, a feeling, a gift, and a wish. Hope is “new friends you’ll find— / friends who are loving and funny and kind.” Hope is “practicing your heart out, letter by letter.” The book’s overarching theme is upbeat, but its bouncy rhyming text is clumsy. The child-appealing illustrations are colorful and lively, though they have a generic look. The cast of wide-eyed characters is racially diverse; some have visible disabilities.
Pleasant enough but not particularly original. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593624128
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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