Offers helpful tools for starting difficult conversations with kids during a rapidly changing pandemic.
As a girl’s routine changes because of Covid-19, she adjusts to some things while others remain frightening in this picture book.
“One day Eva had to stay at home…and stay...and stay…” Eva’s small, pale-skinned face peers sadly toward the street; a calendar’s pages, covered with red X’s, fall to the floor in a two-page spread. The rules of daily life suddenly have shifted: Eva can’t go to school or the playground. She wears a mask and experiences trouble sleeping. Her parents explain that Covid-19 makes some people sicker than others and can kill. “Eva does her best at being patient” and paints, learns, and plays indoors. Angel’s evocative black-and-white photographs of an eerie neighborhood and empty grocery store shelves effectively document the pandemic’s early days. Simple digital cartoon additions to the photos populate yards with deer and illustrate an ambulance racing past a sign celebrating medical workers. During a period when charts communicate so much about the outbreak to adults, some visual allusions may require more clarification for young readers. For example, an orange President Donald Trump points fingers in two directions as a chart implicitly showing case rates appears behind him. Eva’s family doesn’t experience the extreme trauma others deal with, such as eviction. But the clear articulation of Eva’s anxieties and coping mechanisms may still be useful and relatable for many families struggling to address how the crisis has affected them.
Offers helpful tools for starting difficult conversations with kids during a rapidly changing pandemic.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7354264-0-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The story’s slight but allows kids to practice identifying and dealing with their own big feelings.
The diverse group of kids from All Are Welcome (2018) this time gathers in a vacant lot with tools in hand to clear the debris and make something new. But therein lies the rub: What should the something new be? While the exact nature of the disagreement is unfortunately not made clear to readers, the big feelings that the children exhibit are very clear (and for readers who need practice reading facial clues, there’s a labeled chart of 15 in the frontmatter). This book’s refrain is “How can I help? / What can we do?” And the answers, spread over several pages and not spelled out in so many words but rather shown in the illustrations, are: talk it through, compromise, and see things from another perspective. As a guide for dealing with feelings and problem-solving, the book is a bit slim and lacks a solid story to hook readers. But, as with its predecessor, its strength is again the diversity on display in its pages. There’s a rainbow of skin tones and hair colors as well as abundant variation in hair texture, several children exhibit visible disabilities, including one child who uses a wheelchair, and there are markers of religious and cultural diversity. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at 29.6% of actual size.)
The story’s slight but allows kids to practice identifying and dealing with their own big feelings. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-57974-8
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader!
Fun with friends makes for a great day.
Norbit, a salmon-colored worm with a pink kerchief, joyfully greets the day and everyone he encounters. “Hello, friends! It’s time for fun with the sun! Let’s play!” He and his menagerie of forest pals—including the sun, who grows limbs and descends from the sky—exuberantly engage in various forms of physical activity such as jumping, going down a slide, spinning around, and watching the clouds go by. Young readers will readily relate, as these are games that most children are familiar with. As day turns to night, Norbit says farewell to Sun and welcomes Moon with an invitation to continue the fun. Watkins has created a vivid world of movement and merriment. Her illustrations feature bright bursts of color that match the energy of the text, with most sentences ending in an exclamation point. The author/illustrator incorporates many elements that make for an ideal early-reading experience (despite the use of a contraction or two): art free from clutter, text consisting of words with only one or two syllables, and repetition and recurring bits, such as a continued game of hide-and-seek with Sun. Inspired by never-before-seen sketches from the Dr. Seuss Collection archives at the University of California San Diego, this is the first title for Seuss Studios, a new imprint for original stories from “emerging authors and illustrators” who “honor Seuss’s hallmark spirit of creativity and imagination.”
Say hello to a relatable and rewarding early reader! (author's note) (Early reader. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593646212
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Seuss Studios
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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