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ONCE I WAS A BEAR

Name: ONCE I WAS A BEAR
Author: Irene Luxbacher
ISBN: 978-1-338-35633-5

by Irene Luxbacher ; illustrated by Irene Luxbacher ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2020

Imaginative and poetically resonant.

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When is it time to shed one’s fur?

Luxbacher offers a metaphor for the way past experience remains part of oneself. A young brown bear, fuzzy and big-eyed, plays in a sunlit forest, with spring green leaves and bright, slightly abstract flowers in bloom. “Once I lived in a forest of tall trees,” the narrator bear explains. “A bright circle in the sky”—the sun—gave shape to the day. “I was never afraid.” The full-color, edge-to-edge art is dreamy and gently whimsical. As the air grows colder, something happens: The little bear hibernates, dreams, and emerges in “a different kind of wilderness.” This new environment has a human adult, a house, tall buildings, a classroom where “a different circle”—a clock—tells when to rest and play. The bear’s classmates look like human children, but wild creatures in the same clothes hover over some of them. On the last page the small bear in a yellow shirt has become a human child with white skin and brown hair, playing with a child with brown skin and hair, and a bear and a deer play together in the background. The transformation is a bit abrupt but nevertheless rings metaphorically true, encouraging the appreciation of one’s own story and recognizing different experiences of loss and change. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 19.8% of actual size.)

Imaginative and poetically resonant. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-338-35633-5

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
MALAIKA, CARNIVAL QUEEN
by Nadia L. Hohn ; illustrated by Irene Luxbacher

- BOOK REVIEW
MALAIKA’S SURPRISE
by Nadia L. Hohn ; illustrated by Irene Luxbacher

- BOOK REVIEW
TREASURE
by Mireille Messier ; illustrated by Irene Luxbacher

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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...

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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)