Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, championing the power of positive outlook.
A young girl with hearing loss overcomes prejudice to make a new friend in Simmons’ picture book.
Jordyn loves school and is excited to learn that a new boy, Ben, will be joining her class. She leaves a welcome gift on his desk, but, before school starts, Jordyn encounters him on the playground and he scorns her cochlear implants—her “bionic ears.” Jordyn is upset, but her parents reassure her that she is extraordinary and that her hearing loss is a part of that. Jordyn persists in being friendly to Ben, and they bond over a shared love of planets and the solar system. Simmons, herself a deafblind audiologist, relates Jordyn’s story in simple language that captures the age of the protagonists (“I sure hope he likes my cool pencil”). The narrative, while predictable, is effective in conveying its message of inclusiveness. Marie’s illustrations employ bright, digitally rendered images to capture the world of primary-school kids. The notion that difference and impairment are aspects of individuality is reflected not only in Jordyn’s unique perspective (as in the exquisite two-page spread showing her asleep in a bubble of silence that dissipates when she wakes and puts her bionic ears on) but also in the culturally diverse range of characters—Jordyn is depicted as Black; Ben is a white redhead; the teacher, Mrs. Youssef, presents as Muslim. Throughout, Jordyn exhibits an emotional vulnerability and joy for life that all young children should relate to.
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, championing the power of positive outlook.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9798988707417
Page Count: 34
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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