Vibrant and inspiring.
On the first day of school, a child learns about the different ways we can nurture, grow, and share the spark within.
Each of us has a star deep inside. The stars all vary in color. They can be shy and frightened, sometimes shrinking until they aren’t even shaped like a star. Some stars are bent; sometimes they even break. Sometimes a star “may start to scratch / like an itch in your throat.” Sometimes, it fills your eyes with a twinkle. As a young child starts school, readers see how the star within changes as the youngster experiences different emotions, like being scared or feeling lonely in the cafeteria. Another student reaches out with an overture of friendship, but the protagonist trips and falls—and withdraws, throwing the star in the trash. But, with the help of a sympathetic adult, the child learns how to make the star grow and glow again—and then how to use that light to help others glow. Readers are asked what they will do with their own stars and light. Told in rhyming, lyrical verse, this is a moving reminder of our potential and the kindness we can share with others. Relying on watercolorlike washes of color and arresting imagery, the illustrations propel the story forward and add context to the minimal text. The protagonist has light brown skin and appears Asian; other characters are diverse.
Vibrant and inspiring. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781250851451
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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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