A heartwarming and convincing tale for kids seeking to ride out life’s rainclouds.
A young girl is troubled by an annoyingly persistent cloud.
One blustery day, the wind blows a cloud over Tansy’s head, and it can’t be dislodged, despite her family and friends’ best efforts. The cloud grows so big that it begins to rain, drenching Tansy. Her father gives her a raincoat and umbrella, her teacher points a fan in her direction, and best friend Rue joins her under the umbrella to play in the puddles—all of which helps “a little,” Tansy allows. Realizing that gardens like rain, Tansy proposes planting one; soon, she’s walking her cloud around every day to water the seeds. New flowers sprout, and the returning wind blows a hole in the cloud, just the right size for a sunbeam to peek through. In an author’s note, Krossing explains that her story is intended for anyone grappling with “challenges beyond their control” and adds that she drew inspiration from her own experiences with mental illness. Readers will be heartened that though Tansy’s support network does all that they can to help her cope, ultimately, she makes her own bright spot, largely through self-acceptance. Krossing imparts valuable messages to youngsters struggling with their own issues and to those that love them. Leung’s illustrations have a textured coarseness, making effective use of perspective and relying on slightly over-the-top visuals. Tansy is brown-skinned; other characters vary in skin tone.
A heartwarming and convincing tale for kids seeking to ride out life’s rainclouds. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781623545727
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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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