A delicious, snow-filled slice of life.
A father and child enjoy a frigid day together in the city.
In first-person narration, with a definite sense of ownership, a youngster describes winter in an urban setting. “My winter city holds early light / around us, / a moment before sunrise, / silent, / still.” Nothing is plowed, nothing is touched. There is just the young tot peering out the window, looking at the snow. Then, with toboggan firmly in tow, the duo (along with a pup) sets off outside. The serene silence has changed. “My winter city is a soup of salty slushes, full of sliding buses / splashing, spraying, sploshing, soaking walkers on the sidewalk.” They squeeze into the bus with other damp riders, all fogging up the windows. Then they emerge into a new scene—a park. “My winter city is a deep-freeze / vision of big icy sled hills / and towers that rise up through / far-away skies.” The buildings loom large behind trees and newly cut sledding tracks. Snowflakes continue to dot the sky throughout the adventure, all the way until home again. This specific setting may be unfamiliar to some readers, but the narrator opens the end to varied possibilities: “That’s my winter city. // What’s yours?” Clement surprises readers with unexpected compositions, crowding them into the bus with all the passengers then pulling back and up for a bird’s-eye view of the city street. Father and child both present white, but the community they inhabit is a diverse one.
A delicious, snow-filled slice of life. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77306-010-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads.
Emma deals with jitters before playing the guitar in the school talent show.
Pop musician Kevin Jonas and his wife, Danielle, put performance at the center of their picture-book debut. When Emma is intimidated by her very talented friends, the encouragement of her younger sister, Bella, and the support of her family help her to shine her own light. The story is straightforward and the moral familiar: Draw strength from your family and within to overcome your fears. Employing the performance-anxiety trope that’s been written many times over, the book plods along predictably—there’s nothing really new or surprising here. Dawson’s full-color digital illustrations center a White-presenting family along with Emma’s three friends of color: Jamila has tanned skin and wears a hijab; Wendy has dark brown skin and Afro puffs; and Luis has medium brown skin. Emma’s expressive eyes and face are the real draw of the artwork—from worry to embarrassment to joy, it’s clear what she’s feeling. A standout double-page spread depicts Emma’s talent show performance, with a rainbow swirl of music erupting from an amp and Emma rocking a glam outfit and electric guitar. Overall, the book reads pretty plainly, buoyed largely by the artwork. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35207-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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