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THE CREATURE

Curious and curiouser—and altogether a pleasure to experience.

A fuchsia-colored whatsit arrives to stay a year.

Alfie the cat, as cats will do, drags it into the house and drops it on the living room floor, looking smug. “It was cold, it was wet / it was trembling and hairy…. / Then it awoke, / GROWLING and SCARY.” The growl is something to behold, a great, loopy, multicolored scribble of lines. The three white kids brush it outside like a mouse, but the Creature finds a way back in each time; it’s snowing, for goodness sake. “By springtime the creature had settled in well,” eating cardboard, stinking things up, eating plastic, attracting flies, and, beguilingly, “During the night / it was out in the dark, / exploring the garden / or sometimes the park. / It was just in its nature, / it needed to roam….” The Creature crawls up into its mare’s nest of an upper bunk and goes to ground in autumn. On Christmas Eve, there are not one but two Creatures, who simply take their leave out the mail slot, not to be seen again (“but one day YOU might”). It’s a lovely salute to community, embracing even the stinkiest member—don’t even try to guess the Creatures’ species, not polecats, not skunks—with bonhomie. The artwork is a gripping mix of shadows and striking elements of color.

Curious and curiouser—and altogether a pleasure to experience. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-91095-914-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Otter-Barry

Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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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IMANI'S MOON

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...

Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.

The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Mackinac Island Press

Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014

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