Empathetic, informative, and fun.
A little girl with diabetes just wants to play in Lockwood’s picture book.
Katie has wavy light brown hair and fair skin. Before Katie can play hide-and-seek with the other kids in the park, her mom says: “Put the receiver in your pocket, and if you beep, get your diabetes supplies from my bag.” While her mom waits on a park bench nearby, Katie joins her friends, but when she goes to hide, her receiver beeps. Rather than following mom’s instructions, Katie keeps playing—and beeping. Katie’s friend Olivia carries a puppy dog backpack, and when they hide together, Olivia retrieves her asthma inhaler from the bag and takes a puff. Katie is inspired by her friend’s independence, and when her mom finds her, Katie apologizes for worrying her and asks if she might have her own backpack to keep her diabetes supplies on hand. Sall’s watercolor and pencil cartoon illustrations show Katie hiding and beeping while the other kids search; the images fortify the theme of Katie concealing her diabetes until she finds a friend with whom she can relate. Delightfully, it’s Katie and Olivia’s laughter about their respective conditions that gets them caught in the end (not the beeping). The prose uses short, simple sentences in the form of dialogue, Katie’s inner thoughts, and third person narration set around the illustrations. The effect is a truly immersive read that kids with and without chronic medical conditions can enjoy.
Empathetic, informative, and fun.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781964836126
Page Count: 31
Publisher: Acorn Cottage Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 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
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