A powerful exploration of what it means to be welcomed, seen, and accepted.
After being excluded by her peers, a girl finally makes a friend.
The only student with brown skin and her hair in twists, Ameena always plays alone at school. “No one saw her. No one heard her. Or maybe they did. They just didn’t show it. She wasn’t sure.” When they aren’t ignoring her, the other kids look at her like she’s strange. But one day, there’s a new student named Sundus in her class. “Ameena saw her brownness. Saw her hijab, like the ones Ameena also wore to masjid. Saw it was the color of spring, the color of lilacs.” Ameena is not alone! The potential for friendship is there, but Ameena must first learn how to approach and communicate with Sundus, who mistakes Ameena’s initial clumsy overture for a taunt. But a tender moment between their mothers during a visit to the masjid, witnessed by Ameena, offers a blueprint for the language of friendship. Maydani’s sweetly hazy illustrations, which alternate between light pastels and darker shades, capture the characters’ evolving emotions. Thompkins-Bigelow’s words resonate deeply and convey feelings of isolation, exclusion, and joyful acceptance. Details such as the cornrowed braids in Ameena’s hair and the depiction of the imam as a Black man with a beard add texture and normalize Black Muslim representation in children’s literature.
A powerful exploration of what it means to be welcomed, seen, and accepted. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781419767210
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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