Sure to encourage budding young business owners to follow the protagonist’s example.
An entrepreneurial young girl of South Asian descent draws inspiration from her cultural heritage.
It’s summer, so Eva decides to set up a lemonade stand. After all, her head is always “swirling with ideas.” But competition arrives in the form of her neighbor Jake. Resourceful Eva comes up with new ideas (special flavors, flyers to spread the word), but nothing seems to work—Jake is always one step ahead of her. Despondent, Eva gives up, but when her little sibling, Aru, asks her to make kulfi, a frozen, milk-based treat, she’s struck once more by inspiration…and, this time, moved by the collaborative spirit. The text makes heavy use of repetition (each idea “snaps,” “sizzles,” and “sprouts!”). The digital illustrations are engaging, especially the little details scattered around Eva’s household and neighborhood, and the layout is reader-friendly; this one should make for an immersive read-aloud that will have readers impressed by Eva’s perseverance and can-do spirit. A note from Jerath explains that kulfi is often sold by street vendors in India during the summer; an appended recipe lets intrepid readers try their own hand at whipping it up. Jake is light-skinned; the neighborhood is diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sure to encourage budding young business owners to follow the protagonist’s example. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-72825-429-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message.
Drawing on lyrics from her Mormon children’s hymn of the same title, Pearson explores diversity and acceptance in a more secular context.
Addressing people of varying ages, races, origins, and abilities in forced rhymes that omit the original version’s references to Jesus, various speakers describe how they—unlike “some people”—will “show [their] love for” their fellow humans. “If you don’t talk as most people do / some people talk and laugh at you,” a child tells a tongue-tied classmate. “But I won’t! / I won’t! / I’ll talk with you / and giggle too. / That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Unfortunately, many speakers’ actions feel vague and rather patronizing even as they aim to include and reassure. “I know you bring such interesting things,” a wheelchair user says, welcoming a family “born far, far away” who arrives at the airport; the adults wear Islamic clothing. As pink- and brown-skinned worshipers join a solitary brown-skinned person who somehow “[doesn’t] pray as some people pray” on a church pew, a smiling, pink-skinned worshiper’s declaration that “we’re all, I see, one family” raises echoes of the problematic assertion, “I don’t see color.” The speakers’ exclamations of “But I won’t!” after noting others’ prejudiced behavior reads more as self-congratulation than promise of inclusion. Sanders’ geometric, doll-like human figures are cheery but stiff, and the text’s bold, uppercase typeface switches jarringly to cursive for the refrain, “That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Characters’ complexions include paper-white, yellow, pink, and brown.
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4236-5395-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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