A reassuring book with kid-friendly explanations that celebrate the maternal bond.
In this children’s picture book, a mother explains what her growing baby was doing during pregnancy, month to month.
For kids who are curious about what it was like to develop in utero, this book by blogger Darter helps answer their questions. Rhyming couplets explain the mother’s point of view and the baby’s monthly stages of development. In month three, for example, “My belly got bigger and harder to hide, / I was happy to tell people you were living inside. / You had arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes, / You could even make your fists open and close.” The meter can be uneven and some rhymes are off (such as "formed" with "yawned"), but overall the verse is appealing and informative. Illustrators King and Camarra combine photos with pastel paintings outlined in black, decorated with hearts and flowers. The blonde white mother is always gently smiling, often with eyes downturned to her belly, cut away to show the developing baby. Perhaps understandably, Darter only hints at the discomforts of pregnancy and pain of childbirth. Instead, the focus is all on the joy of having a baby, with comforting messages for young readers, like, “I am so grateful you grew close to my heart, / And I always loved you right from the start.” Altogether, it’s a gentle, sweet introduction to the basics of fetal development and what pregnancy is like.
A reassuring book with kid-friendly explanations that celebrate the maternal bond.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-6031-0
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Mascot Books
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A memorable story of kindness, courage and wonder.
After being home-schooled for years, Auggie Pullman is about to start fifth grade, but he’s worried: How will he fit into middle school life when he looks so different from everyone else?
Auggie has had 27 surgeries to correct facial anomalies he was born with, but he still has a face that has earned him such cruel nicknames as Freak, Freddy Krueger, Gross-out and Lizard face. Though “his features look like they’ve been melted, like the drippings on a candle” and he’s used to people averting their eyes when they see him, he’s an engaging boy who feels pretty ordinary inside. He’s smart, funny, kind and brave, but his father says that having Auggie attend Beecher Prep would be like sending “a lamb to the slaughter.” Palacio divides the novel into eight parts, interspersing Auggie’s first-person narrative with the voices of family members and classmates, wisely expanding the story beyond Auggie’s viewpoint and demonstrating that Auggie’s arrival at school doesn’t test only him, it affects everyone in the community. Auggie may be finding his place in the world, but that world must find a way to make room for him, too.
A memorable story of kindness, courage and wonder. (Fiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-375-86902-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
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