A comforting cup of tenderness for children when aging and memory loss issues begin to brew
As Grandma ages, teatime changes in the eyes of a loving grandchild.
“Ever since I was really little, I have loved having tea with my grandma.” A young girl remembers the days of holding her stuffed bear as she reaches out to hug her gray-haired maternal grandmother. She explains the teatime ritual, which begins by selecting a teacup from a beautiful collection, as flowers and fruit and cupcakes wait on the table. With bright illustrations brimming with geometric patterns, the pages exude comfort and familiarity. The unnamed narrator’s mother is white with blonde hair, and her father has brown skin and black hair, making the biracial girl a sweet blending of the two. As the narrator grows in age and wisdom, she notices that Grandma is getting confused—she leaves the water running and puts her eyeglasses in the refrigerator. Most alarmingly, she calls her granddaughter by the wrong name. But with optimism and honesty, the girl finds ways to help her grandmother remember. While the story is constructive in tone, readers will also understand that accepting the reality of memory loss is equally important. The gentle theme of spending care-filled time with aging loved ones echoes another title by Pak, My Grandpa’s Chair (2017). As the back cover tagline reads, “When someone you love can’t remember things, maybe you can remember for them.”
A comforting cup of tenderness for children when aging and memory loss issues begin to brew . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-58107-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As insubstantial as hot air.
A diverse cast of children first makes a fleet of hot air balloons and then takes to the sky in them.
Lifestyle maven Gaines uses this activity as a platform to celebrate diversity in learning and working styles. Some people like to work together; others prefer a solo process. Some take pains to plan extensively; others know exactly what they want and jump right in. Some apply science; others demonstrate artistic prowess. But “see how beautiful it can be when / our differences share the same sky?” Double-page spreads leading up to this moment of liftoff are laid out such that rhyming abcb quatrains typically contain one or two opposing concepts: “Some of us are teachers / and share what we know. / But all of us are learners. / Together is how we grow!” In the accompanying illustration, a bespectacled, Asian-presenting child at a blackboard lectures the other children on “balloon safety.” Gaines’ text has the ring of sincerity, but the sentiment is hardly an original one, and her verse frequently sacrifices scansion for rhyme. Sometimes it abandons both: “We may not look / or work or think the same, / but we all have an / important part to play.” Swaney’s delicate, pastel-hued illustrations do little to expand on the text, but they are pretty. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.2-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 70.7% of actual size.)
As insubstantial as hot air. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4003-1423-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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