A lighthearted look at an increasingly common scenario.
In this newest installment in Danneberg’s series following Mrs. Hartwell’s elementary school class, other staff members must step in when Mrs. H is ill.
It’s a teacher’s worst nightmare—feeling awful, you call in sick, relying on your emergency sub plans to get your class through the day…but the substitute fails to show! Various staffers fill in for the beloved teacher, but none quite fill her shoes, as her students point out in messages sent over the Homeroom Hub. The gym teacher starts the day with loud music and exercise instead of having the kids do their morning jobs, and the math teacher fails to read a Junie B. Jones book aloud with multiple character voices. Alternating or facing pages show that Mrs. Hartwell isn’t getting the kids’ messages. Instead, she’s taking care of herself and gradually starting to feel better, many of her activities matching the things going on in the class (they watch a penguin documentary; she watches dog and cat videos). When Mrs. Hartwell finally looks at her messages, she has 126, and she knows just what to do with her class the next day. Details in the watercolor, dye, and India ink illustrations will keep readers poring over them; the children’s facial expressions are an especial delight. Mrs. Hartwell has light skin; students and other staff are diverse.
A lighthearted look at an increasingly common scenario. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781623544249
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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