A gentle story with clear messaging about kindness, empathy, and seeing beyond superficial differences.
A little boy whose skin changes color is bullied for being different in Tabb’s illustrated children’s book.
Sam is a third grader with an unusual condition: Like a chameleon, his skin turns different colors to match his surroundings. Sam has a few friends, but other kids mock and bully him. A girl laughs at a purple-skinned Sam when he asks if she wants to play. A boy calls him “weird” and “pushe[s] Sam’s bike over.” On his way home, Sam turns green. While he’s greeted appreciatively by his adoring little sister and supportive parents (“We love you just the way you are”), Sam is still sad, wishing he looked like “everyone else.” By not over-dramatizing Sam’s plight, Tabb strikes the right tone to invite readers’ empathy, then deftly turns things around by giving Sam agency over how he is perceived, having him dream that he’s saved from bullies by a bunch of chameleons. The heroic, color-shifting reptiles spark Sam’s fascination with the real thing. He learns about them (Tabb includes interesting chameleon facts), is given his own pet chameleon, and takes his pet to school. There, Sam’s informed presentation sparks his peers’ interest, and they see that Sam is a pretty cool kid, no matter what color he is. The chameleon theme is woven visually throughout the book; Tabb alerts her readers to spot the five chameleons that can be found on certain pages as part of the illustrations by Albert. These are done in an especially engaging style featuring expressive cartoonish characters in different skin tones (a couple of them are in wheelchairs), simple line drawings, and an assured balance of color and white space. The after-material includes questions for kids to ponder and a link to a website with activities.
A gentle story with clear messaging about kindness, empathy, and seeing beyond superficial differences.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2024
ISBN: 9798350969092
Page Count: 36
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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