A quiet yet masterfully rendered reminder that decency is always worth the hassle.
An everyday hero comes to the rescue of a frightened feline.
It’s rush hour in Seoul, and bumper-to-bumper traffic has turned passing lanes into parking lots and drivers into drones. A kitten—tiny, frazzled, and soaked through by lashing rain—wends her way through the gridlock, desperately dodging disaster as passersby look on. The onlookers tacitly make their attitude clear: This situation is cause for concern but not worthy of anyone's bother—a problem certainly, but someone else’s to solve. Yet when the frantic feline disappears from sight, one commuter resolves to act, shaken from the apathy of diffused responsibility and undeterred by the symphony of honks that resound from neighboring vehicles. A nameless driver screeches to a halt, dashing from a sedan’s dry warmth and nabbing the imperiled animal just in time for the clouds to break and traffic to dissipate. This small act of heroism—and the inconvenience it entailed—was well worth the delay. Understated and straightforward, Huh’s narrative, translated from Korean by Park, brims with profound truths about the outsize impact of everyday braveries in the face of normalized inaction, while Lee’s illustrations, in doodlelike pastels and colored pencil, complement the message beautifully. Dynamic compositions—close-ups, overhead shots, use of panels—convey drama and tension.
A quiet yet masterfully rendered reminder that decency is always worth the hassle. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9780802856494
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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