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PAPER PLANES

A beautiful and sensitive treatment of a common childhood experience.

Can a friendship survive an overseas move?

This is the story of Mia and Ben, two friends who grew up in side-by-side houses and enjoyed the same hobby: making paper airplanes together. One day, however, Ben’s family must move far away. Losing a friend due to a move can be very challenging, and the ordeal can sometimes feel like a great betrayal. Such is the case for Mia, whose friendship with Ben is tested severely; her feelings volley between hurt and anger, only to be soothed by dreams about meeting Ben again. One day, however, she receives a pleasant surprise in the mail: Ben has built a plane halfway and now seeks her input for completing the remaining half. She happily obliges. In this touching, sparely written story about friendship, author Helmore makes the best out of a difficult and potentially traumatic experience—a separation. While the story, enhanced by Jones’ symbolic, beautifully chalky illustrations, has a bittersweet beginning, it has a positive and uplifting ending. Parents and educators will especially appreciate how the protagonists’ feelings are depicted in a realistic and convincing manner—and the validation that sadness and anger are OK. The book’s inspiring ending makes it a good resource for children experiencing separation issues. Mia has brown skin and black, bobbed hair, and Ben presents white; their shared neighborhood appears to be in rural North America.

A beautiful and sensitive treatment of a common childhood experience. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-68263-161-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Peachtree

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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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CLAYMATES

The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...

Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.

A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.

The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: June 20, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017

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