A loving and lovely celebration of the many ties—sisterly, friendship, communal—that bind.
The creators of the bestselling The Proudest Blue (2019) return with a tale of siblings, friendship, and acts of kindness.
For picture day, Faizah wears a red dress that belonged first to Mama and then to her older sister, Asiya. Asiya does Faizah’s hair in puffs, Faizah pins Asiya’s hijab, and, with kind words from Mama, off they go to school, where Faizah finds she matches with her friend Sophie, who has light skin and red hair and is wearing a dress with red roses. Brown-skinned Ms. Ramirez asks the students to imagine the kind of world they want and to draw and label it. Faizah draws a kind world, and Sophie draws a superhero world. Then, at recess and throughout the day, they use their superpowers to make the world kinder, helping other kids and brightening their days. By picture time, everyone in class is smiling. But when it’s time for sibling photos, Faizah is upset to realize that, unlike the other sibling pairs, she and Asiya don’t match. Can her friends find a way to help? Helping others looks fun and rewarding in this sweet tale that empowers readers by showing them their actions can result in a world everyone would want to live in. This much-needed positive representation of a loving Black Muslim family is set within a diverse community, depicted with Aly’s characteristic expressive energy and charm. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A loving and lovely celebration of the many ties—sisterly, friendship, communal—that bind. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5570-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts.
In this latest slice in the Food Group series, Humble Pie learns to stand up to a busy friend who’s taking advantage of his pal’s hard work on the sidelines.
Jake the Cake and Humble Pie are good friends. Where Pie is content to toil in the background, Jake happily shines in the spotlight. Alert readers will notice that Pie’s always right there, too, getting A-pluses and skiing expertly just behind—while also doing the support work that keeps every school and social project humming. “Fact: Nobody notices pie when there’s cake nearby!” When the two friends pair up for a science project, things begin well. But when the overcommitted Jake makes excuse after excuse, showing up late or not at all, a panicked Pie realizes that they won’t finish in time. When Jake finally shows up on the night before the project’s due, Pie courageously confronts him. “And for once, I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.” The friends talk it out and collaborate through the night for the project’s successful presentation in class the next day. John and Oswald’s winning recipe—plentiful puns and delightful visual jokes—has yielded another treat here. The narration does skew didactic as it wraps up: “There’s nothing wrong with having a tough conversation, asking for help, or making sure you’re being treated fairly.” But it’s all good fun, in service of some gentle lessons about social-emotional development.
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780063469730
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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