A celebration of the grandparent-grandchild bond and an immigration tale that any child missing home will relate to.
A young girl living in the United States misses her old life in an unnamed Central American country, particularly her beloved grandmother.
Rocio misses visits to Abuela’s grocery store, with its enticing smells and the soft, rustling sounds of handmade piñatas hanging from the ceiling. She misses Abuela’s buñuelos (fried dough fritters), special coffee, and tortillas, and she fondly recalls how she and her grandmother used to gaze at the night sky at bedtime. On the morning of Rocio’s birthday, she is excited and moved to discover that Abuela has sent her a package containing “a dazzling star made of bright ruffled paper”; a stack of tortillas wrapped in a cloth with Rocio’s name stitched on it; and a picture of Abuela and other relatives holding a happy-birthday banner. “Con mucho amor. / With lots of love,” the writing on the package reads. That night, Rocio blows a kiss through her window that travels far across the night sky to eventually land on Abuela’s cheek “with lots of love.” The striking digital artwork incorporates dynamic patterns and flowing lines that add liveliness, balancing the rather bland, albeit sweet, text. All characters have straight black hair and terra-cotta–colored skin except for Rocio’s light-skinned mother. Visual cues suggest that Rocio lives in a suburban neighborhood, and may lead some readers to conclude her grandmother lives in Mexico. Some Spanish terms, like pan dulce and Las Mañanitas, are sprinkled throughout the story.
A celebration of the grandparent-grandchild bond and an immigration tale that any child missing home will relate to. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-20500-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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
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
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