Young readers are advised: Wait and read the original instead.
An homage to L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.
A picture book “inspired by Anne of Green Gables” could have intriguing possibilities—and there are legions of Anne fans worldwide already primed to love anything Anne. But therein lies the problem. The narrative’s storyline, and therefore its relevance, relies on readers’ knowledge of events in the middle-grade Anne of Green Gables book—an improbable occurrence for readers (unless they are nostalgic adults) of this picture book. Channeling Anne’s legendary imagination—so brilliantly created by Montgomery in her book—author George attempts to string the essence of various chapters of Anne of Green Gables into a sort of stream-of-consciousness Anne-ness, but she succeeds only in presenting a disembodied saccharine-ness. The repetitive “Anne with an e,” so important to her character development in the novel, becomes tedious in 40 pages. Godbout’s pastel-and–colored-pencil artwork infuses the double-page spreads with a visual delicacy created by the pairing of a sophisticated palette with a filmy execution style. While the full-color illustrations are well designed and offer a good variety of perspectives, their diaphanous atmosphere has the effect of further saturating the narrative’s already rose-colored reverence and gives the whole an overall effect of oozing in treacle. While the author’s sincere admiration of Anne shines through, this execution drowns in sentimentality.
Young readers are advised: Wait and read the original instead. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77049-928-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their...
Ruby is an adventurous and happy child until the day she discovers a Worry.
Ruby barely sees the Worry—depicted as a blob of yellow with a frowny unibrow—at first, but as it hovers, the more she notices it and the larger it grows. The longer Ruby is affected by this Worry, the fewer colors appear on the page. Though she tries not to pay attention to the Worry, which no one else can see, ignoring it prevents her from enjoying the things that she once loved. Her constant anxiety about the Worry causes the bright yellow blob to crowd Ruby’s everyday life, which by this point is nearly all washes of gray and white. But at the playground, Ruby sees a boy sitting on a bench with a growing sky-blue Worry of his own. When she invites the boy to talk, his Worry begins to shrink—and when Ruby talks about her own Worry, it also grows smaller. By the book’s conclusion, Ruby learns to control her Worry by talking about what worries her, a priceless lesson for any child—or adult—conveyed in a beautifully child-friendly manner. Ruby presents black, with hair in cornrows and two big afro-puff pigtails, while the boy has pale skin and spiky black hair.
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their feelings (. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0237-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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