Useful and simple guidance for helping preschoolers quiet their roiling emotions.
Community members spending time at the park practice calming techniques.
A family picnicking together, an older caregiver biking with a child, and an adult and a youngster rowing a boat on the water all pause to take deep breaths and center themselves. “Quiet your toes, quiet your feet. / Quiet your legs and just breathe.” “Quiet your neck, unclench your teeth. / Quiet your tongue and just breathe.” Following these directions, Leeds invites readers to count to 10 twice. Each set of people practices this exercise, and the format offers young readers an opportunity to try these calming activities; adults looking to help kids calm down in times of stress should find the book useful. Backmatter includes additional techniques, along with music for an accompanying song (whose lyrics are comprised of the book’s text); a QR code links to a singalong with video animation. Quintino’s bold, brightly colored illustrations have an appealingly scribbly look, as though created by a crayon-wielding youngster. At times it can be difficult to interpret the action, but the expressions on people’s faces offer clues to their emotions.
Useful and simple guidance for helping preschoolers quiet their roiling emotions. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9798888598979
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
We’ll say it: a toothsome experience.
Flash those pearly whites!
Renowned poet Florian’s jaunty rhymes suggest that a hygiene ritual many children consider bothersome can be “fun! fun! fun!” Each spread features lively scenes showing kids demonstrating tooth- and mouth-cleansing techniques as well as two couplets in which the second exclamatory lines—containing a word repeated three times—rhyme with each other (“Toothpaste on the / brush! brush! brush!” “Take your time. / Don’t rush! rush! rush!”). Parents and caregivers seeking an enjoyable, stimulating way to motivate youngsters to perform this important daily task may wish to recite the rollicking verses to provide a pleasant, rhythmic, chanting “background” whenever their kids wield their toothbrushes. The colorful, energetic illustrations depict happy, wide-eyed, racially diverse small children—some with missing teeth—taking care of their oral-hygiene business with gusto. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
We’ll say it: a toothsome experience. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4998-1340-1
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
If Black Lives Matter, they deserve more specificity than this.
A lushly illustrated picture book with a troubling message.
Little Lala walks with her father after his successful day of fishing. When Mama calls her home for bed, a host of “good night”s delays her: to the bird, the monkey, and even the rock. As Lala wanders through her village in the darkening twilight, readers appreciate its expansive beauty and Lala’s simple joys. Although it’s been artfully written and richly illustrated by an award-winning author of many multicultural stories, this book has problems that overshadow its beauty. “African veld” sets the story in southern Africa, but its vague locale encourages Americans to think that distinctions among African countries don’t matter. Lala wears braids or locks that stick straight up, recalling the 19th-century pickaninny, and her inconsistent skin color ranges from deep ebony like her father’s to light brown. Shadows may cause some of these differences, but if it weren’t for her identifiable hair, readers might wonder if the same child wanders from page to page. Perhaps most striking of all is Lala’s bedtime story: not an African tale but an American classic. While this might evoke nostalgia in some readers, it also suggests that southern Africa has no comparably great bedtime books for Lala, perhaps in part because American children’s literature dominates the world market.
If Black Lives Matter, they deserve more specificity than this. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-17384-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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