An entertaining cultural comparison for young readers.
Bradley’s colorful illustrated book compares the everyday terms of two cousins living in different countries.
A young Canadian narrator and her Northern Irish cousin, Arlene, both “speak English but…” there are differences in the words they use for common items. The charming story begins by addressing a common statement made by children: that people from other countries “speak funny.” Bradley explains through her main character that Arlene “speaks differently” than the narrator. Each page compares two commonly used items and the word that each cousin uses for that item. Examples include: “She takes the lift to the seventh floor. I take the elevator” and “She has biscuits as a treat. I have cookies as a treat.” On the first page, the Canadian child reveals that the cousin “has an Irish accent like my mum.” Later, sports balls are shown with the Canadian flag and the Union Jack. In Canada, the game is soccer; in Northern Ireland, it’s football. Bradley infuses humor throughout, which adds nicely to the story: “My cousin wears trousers. I wear pants. She says that pants are underwear and wearing them in public is bonkers!” Young North American readers will learn “a poke and a flake” is a soft-serve ice-cream cone with a chocolate bar sticking out of it—and European readers will learn that soft-serve cones across the pond are served without candy bars. Throughout, the colorful cartoon illustrations are certain to appeal to young readers; they complement the text nicely and will add to readers’ understanding. Children will enjoy learning about and comparing differences between the two cultures, and the story ends with a family connection: “But we both say, goodnight, God bless and sweet dreams” and look forward to visiting each other.
An entertaining cultural comparison for young readers.Pub Date: May 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781039169616
Page Count: 44
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2023
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
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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