The prolific Willis’ offbeat fable of cooperation and sharing features a solitary green, bipedal, two-armed, sluglike being called a Slodge.
The Slodge’s sleepy, squelchy progress out of a slime pit is followed by yawns, scratches and a proprietary survey of the unpopulated landscape. The self-satisfied Slodge gambols about, laying claim to everything from the sunrise to the fruit trees. “Mine, all mine!” All is good until another Slodge, a male, appears on the second day (of creation?). Escalating from a possessive-pronoun throwdown, the first fight erupts. Armageddon appears imminent until a jaundiced, toothy, seagoing Snawk has the temerity to target the first Slodge as she plunges into its domain. The boy Slodge saves the day with a battle cry of “That’s my Slodge!” Desmond’s primarily blue- and green-hued digital mixed-media art (collage, paint and colored pencil) populates the world with myriad fantastical creatures once peace is declared. “The world didn’t belong to anyone. / It belonged to everyone. / It was there to share.” The Slodges unite in an accelerated and, one assumes, successful friendship, because one page-turn later, there are suddenly 72 romping children and more on the way.
From the primordial ooze to the red fruit, the illustrations serve to reinforce the Adam and Eve metaphor, and the whole thing may leave readers rooting for the serpentlike Snawk . (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-58925-169-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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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 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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How do you make a new friend when an old one moves away?
Buddy (from Sorry, Grown-Ups, You Can’t Go to School, 2019, etc.) is feeling lonely. His best friend just moved across town. To make matters worse, there is a field trip coming up, and Buddy needs a bus partner. His sister, Lady, has some helpful advice for making a new pal: “You just need to find something you have in common.” Buddy loves the game Robo Chargers and karate. Surely there is someone else who does, too! Unfortunately, there isn’t. However, when a new student arrives (one day later) and asks everyone to call her Sunny instead of Alison, Buddy gets excited. No one uses his given name, either; they just call him Buddy. He secretly whispers his “real, official name” to Sunny at lunch—an indication that a true friendship is being formed. The rest of the story plods merrily along, all pieces falling exactly into place (she even likes Robo Chargers!), accompanied by Bowers’ digital art, a mix of spot art and full-bleed illustrations. Friendship-building can be an emotionally charged event in a child’s life—young readers will certainly see themselves in Buddy’s plight—but, alas, there is not much storytelling magic to be found. Buddy and his family are White, Sunny and Mr. Teacher are Black, and Buddy’s other classmates are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Making friends isn’t always this easy and convenient. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-30709-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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