A brief guide that sends wholesome messages to young males of color.
Boys and young men of color get encouraging messages in a cross-genre nonfiction book with the theme, “You can be whatever you want to be.”
At first glance, Sims’ debut looks like a picture book for young children—it has just 40 heavily illustrated pages, many with only a line or two of text. But a deeper dive reveals that it’s also a workbook that offers young readers tools for applying its upbeat message that boys of color can set and achieve goals. “You come from royal lineage,” he says early on. Some tips provide guidance on dealing with strong emotions: “It’s ok to mess up, to feel sad, to cry, to be anxious and to even be fearful….We are all human, and these things happen to us all.” Others give young readers practical advice about minding their manners and looking for people who can help them reach their goals (“befriend people who will push you to the next level”). Sims encourages friendship (“Other Young Kings are your brothers”) and touches on heterosexual romance: “If you like a young lady and she does not like you, it’s totally fine! Someone else may actually like you now or like you in the future.” He also encourages boys and men to have faith: “When you have no one else, remember you always have God and yourself.” His guide has workbooklike features—which leave space for writing down short- and long-term goals—and includes questions that encourage readers to take stock of their feelings: “What makes you happy and sad? Who inspires you? What do you want to grow up to be?” Bonfiglio’s many bold illustrations generally complement the text nicely, depicting boys enjoying varied activities (such as meditating or listening to music) or showing emotions (such as crying or exulting after a sports victory). Some people may wish, however, that the text and pictures were more inclusive: The section on faith, for example, shows a boy praying with his hands steepled and doesn’t suggest that other young men might pray on mats or elsewhere.
A brief guide that sends wholesome messages to young males of color.Pub Date: May 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-763194-0
Page Count: 46
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
