An adventurous, offbeat take on telling time.
A girl visits creatures that live at each number of the clock in debut author/illustrator Richards’ picture book.
Desi, a girl with light-brown skin and dark-brown hair, explains that in the circular land where she lives, creatures called Tocks reside at each number of the clock face; with her dog and cat, she visits each one. First is the Phloon, a stringy, singing creature who lives on a dune at noon; she later takes a rowboat to see the octopuslike Gloor at 4 and ventures through a snowy forest to see the dangling, spiderlike Sline at 9. During her visits, Desi explains the Tocks’ traits, abilities, and personalities. Some are scary, but others are pleasant, such as the Thevin, a large, purple creature with a “toy train that / brings tea and lemon.” The trio returns to “where the Phloon stood at noon,” and at midnight, they receive good-night wishes from a giant, multicolored Zight. Young readers will enjoy the whimsical settings and the imaginative, engaging Tocks while familiarizing themselves with numbers and the hours of the clock. The brightly colored, cartoonlike illustrations include many fun details, as when Desi and her pets are seen dressed up for a posh party at the Thevin’s. Backdrops include quirky thematic elements, such as a wall decorated with the lyrics to “Hickory Dickory Dock.”
An adventurous, offbeat take on telling time.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73770-560-4
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Kintou Media Company
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2021
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
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Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.
After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.
Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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