Readers will respond to this confident, can-do girl who demonstrates that magical adventures are easy to create.
Princess Truly returns…to save the day.
In this third book about Princess Truly—and the first chapter book—the brown-skinned protagonist, who wears a red cape, a purple tutu, and magical white buttoned boots, attends the first-birthday party of her friend Lizzie’s cat, Waffles. When the exuberant Waffles crashes into the fish-shaped cake, Princess Truly calls on her “magic curls,” (styled into two sparkling puff-balls) to make a beautiful new one. During the party, Waffles gets tangled in the balloon strings and floats out the window, with Noodles, Truly’s trusty pug, holding on. Truly can save the pets, but only with Lizzie’s help. Lizzie panics, knowing she has no magic or extraordinary strength, but Truly convinces her that her smarts, bravery, and belief in herself are enough to do the job. Young readers who admire Black Panther but need to see superheroes as young as they are will enjoy not only Princess Truly’s magic hair and flightworthy boots, but also her confidence, creativity, and supportive attitude toward others. Rauscher’s pastel-colored watercolor images give readers plenty of details to find—especially animals behaving uncharacteristically. A page in the backmatter provides brief directions for readers to draw Princess Truly and write their own adventure stories.
Readers will respond to this confident, can-do girl who demonstrates that magical adventures are easy to create. (Fantasy. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-33998-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Acorn/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the...
In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message.
Drawing on lyrics from her Mormon children’s hymn of the same title, Pearson explores diversity and acceptance in a more secular context.
Addressing people of varying ages, races, origins, and abilities in forced rhymes that omit the original version’s references to Jesus, various speakers describe how they—unlike “some people”—will “show [their] love for” their fellow humans. “If you don’t talk as most people do / some people talk and laugh at you,” a child tells a tongue-tied classmate. “But I won’t! / I won’t! / I’ll talk with you / and giggle too. / That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Unfortunately, many speakers’ actions feel vague and rather patronizing even as they aim to include and reassure. “I know you bring such interesting things,” a wheelchair user says, welcoming a family “born far, far away” who arrives at the airport; the adults wear Islamic clothing. As pink- and brown-skinned worshipers join a solitary brown-skinned person who somehow “[doesn’t] pray as some people pray” on a church pew, a smiling, pink-skinned worshiper’s declaration that “we’re all, I see, one family” raises echoes of the problematic assertion, “I don’t see color.” The speakers’ exclamations of “But I won’t!” after noting others’ prejudiced behavior reads more as self-congratulation than promise of inclusion. Sanders’ geometric, doll-like human figures are cheery but stiff, and the text’s bold, uppercase typeface switches jarringly to cursive for the refrain, “That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Characters’ complexions include paper-white, yellow, pink, and brown.
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4236-5395-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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