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SECRETS I KNOW

Name: SECRETS I KNOW
Author: Kallie George
ISBN: 978-1-101-93893-5

by Kallie George ; illustrated by Paola Zakimi ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2017

Psst! This book holds delightful secrets. And these secrets shouldn’t be missed.

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A small girl shares her secrets (she knows “lots,” and she knows “secrets are for whispering”).

She cups her pale hand, covers her mouth, leans into a puppy’s ear, and begins. Throughout her day (marked by raindrops, seashells, sun, play, and, finally, stars) readers hear the girl’s husky, hushed voice unfurling ribbons of loosely tied thoughts and associations. She relays all she knows: “Whispers hide in trees. / Trees make great umbrellas. / Umbrellas are the perfect boats.” The interconnected (perhaps improvised?) litany goes on and on, while short sentences convey charming clarity and punctuated certainty. Full-bleed, double-page spreads depict playtime vignettes that inspire her secrets, and as these pictures run off the page, succeeding one another fluidly, it’s easy to visualize the girl’s secrets all strung together, a cheerful paper chain of ideas and whimsy. Pencil drawings capture the coyness in her upward-cast eyes, the bounce of her bob, her pursed smile, and the windy, leafy outdoors. Dusky digital coloring—mildly murky browns and greens—clouds the illustrations with a subtle cover of mystery, suggesting both a cloudy day and a shadowy, secretive mood. Once indoors, the mood and pictures brighten, lit up by a beaming friendship with her neighbor, a brown-skinned boy equally excited by stargazing. He also knows that “Stars keep your secrets. / They only tell the trees.”

Psst! This book holds delightful secrets. And these secrets shouldn’t be missed. (Picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: May 23, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-101-93893-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WISHING LEAF
by Kallie George ; illustrated by Paola Zakimi

- BOOK REVIEW
SAND CAKES
by Kallie George ; illustrated by Devon Holzwarth

- BOOK REVIEW
I HEAR YOU, MOUNTAINS
by Kallie George ; illustrated by Carmen Mok

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SPAGHETTI HEAD & CHICKEN FINGERS

by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal ; illustrated by Erica Salcedo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2026

Wild and wacky.

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A picture book from the comedy duo known as Rhett & Link, creators of the online juggernaut Good Mythical Morning.

Lumo is obsessed with chicken fingers; Saffy, who is new to town and anxious about starting school, finds comfort in the only food she likes: buttered spaghetti. The night before the first day of school, a thunderstorm rages, and each kid makes a wish—“to have chicken fingers at school,” in Lumo’s case; Saffy wishes for “the first thing off the top of her head: buttered spaghetti.” File under “Be careful what you wish for.” Lumo’s and Saffy’s respective physical changes (chicken fingers for fingers, spaghetti for hair) make navigating school a challenge but bring them together in the cafeteria, where they enjoy some new foods—and their new friendship. The plotting could have been sharper: Why do the kids’ bodies suddenly return to normal? And couldn’t the authors have thought up a less old-hat story-ending punch line? Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Neal get by on their charm, and the plot sets up some funny visuals. Salcedo’s cartoony Photoshop art features well-chosen artifacts from a typical kid’s life and captures the mortification of not fitting in, which will be familiar even to readers who have never experienced breaded fingers or noodle hair. Lumo is brown-skinned and dark-haired; Saffy is pale-skinned with disheveled reddish-brown hair.

Wild and wacky. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: June 16, 2026

ISBN: 9780063474154

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperPop/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)