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MR. PARTICULAR

Name: MR. PARTICULAR
Author: Jason Kirschner
ISBN: 978-1-4549-1818-9

THE WORLD’S CHOOSIEST CHAMPION!

by Jason Kirschner ; illustrated by Jason Kirschner ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 2016

A particularly appropriate tale just right for a choosy crowd.

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A young superhero holds his team back due to his many aversions.

Donning a cheery, apple-red cape, a shirt emblazoned with a scarlet "P," and an aviator's helmet, Mr. Particular may be a superhero, but he has a very precise litany of things he dislikes, including (but not limited to) tucked-in shirts, squishy mud, the smell of coconut, and humming. He fights alongside his teammates: the brown-socked, yellow-masked Atomic Bear and the striped-tights–wearing, pink-bespectacled Daring Duck. However, Mr. Particular’s fussiness has been keeping him on the sidelines of their world-saving fun, and the team isn't happy. Exiled from the group, he's worried that he'll be stuck playing with the diaper-laden Super Pooper (his little brother). When he discovers Atomic Bear stuck in a tree above some superslimy mud and near a humming beehive (depicted as a wasps’ nest), can Mr. Particular overcome his dislikes and save the day? Told in comic-book format with large, kinetic panels and a pleasantly muted palette, Kirschner's offering puts an accessible, even enjoyable spin on sensory aversions and adds dashes of giggle-worthy, slight potty humor to keep readers' interests piqued. While Mr. Particular is white, his team is fairly diverse racially as well as by gender. A tidily wrapped-up resolution shows even the most stickling superhero can muster the inner strength to do what must be done to save the day.

A particularly appropriate tale just right for a choosy crowd. (Graphic picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: May 10, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4549-1818-9

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sterling

Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
CHALLAH DAY!
by Charlotte Offsay ; illustrated by Jason Kirschner

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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)

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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RUBY FINDS A WORRY

From the Big Bright Feelings series

by Tom Percival ; illustrated by Tom Percival ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2019

A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their...

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Ruby is an adventurous and happy child until the day she discovers a Worry.

Ruby barely sees the Worry—depicted as a blob of yellow with a frowny unibrow—at first, but as it hovers, the more she notices it and the larger it grows. The longer Ruby is affected by this Worry, the fewer colors appear on the page. Though she tries not to pay attention to the Worry, which no one else can see, ignoring it prevents her from enjoying the things that she once loved. Her constant anxiety about the Worry causes the bright yellow blob to crowd Ruby’s everyday life, which by this point is nearly all washes of gray and white. But at the playground, Ruby sees a boy sitting on a bench with a growing sky-blue Worry of his own. When she invites the boy to talk, his Worry begins to shrink—and when Ruby talks about her own Worry, it also grows smaller. By the book’s conclusion, Ruby learns to control her Worry by talking about what worries her, a priceless lesson for any child—or adult—conveyed in a beautifully child-friendly manner. Ruby presents black, with hair in cornrows and two big afro-puff pigtails, while the boy has pale skin and spiky black hair.

A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their feelings (. (Picture book. 4-6)