A lovely story about friendship, welcoming the other, and winning people’s hearts with kindness.
A family from another country moves into Evie’s neighborhood. Everyone warmly welcomes them except for one person who has a different perspective.
Evie, whose family is White and Jewish, is very curious about the Saids. The parents and child have dark brown skin and are Muslim. Evie’s parents confirm that the newcomers, refugees or immigrants, are similar to her own Jewish grandparents. Bimi, the kid in the Said family, is timid the first time he meets Evie. However, they quickly become friends. On moving day, Evie’s father, who wears a kippah, helps with carrying boxes, then everyone in the neighborhood contributes items to the new home. The neighbors, diverse in skin color, dress, age, and religion, gather around the Saids’ table for a festive meal that weekend. But Mrs. Monroe, a White woman, is missing. Both sets of parents, independently, try to explain to Evie and Bimi what may be behind the neighbor’s strange looks and behavior toward the Saids. Throughout the story, the Saids, albeit mostly on the receiving end of help, actively participate in shaping their world, including eventually winning over Mrs. Monroe with kindness and humor. Nayberg’s jewel-toned paintings play with perspective and angle, compositions and figuring emphasizing emotion rather than strict realism. An author’s note and instructions for making a stuffed bear conclude the book.
A lovely story about friendship, welcoming the other, and winning people’s hearts with kindness. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72841-571-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
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
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
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