Skillfully conjures a seascape filled with adorable characters and offers a reminder to welcome difference with compassion.
An underwater tale from Marshalsey that challenges young readers to overcome the fear of being seen as different.
The book begins with a red octopus looking for shells, mistaking a passing stingray for a ghost, and then fleeing in panic (“It’s a happy ghost! I need to hide!”). The next day, other sea creatures, like yellow fish, react similarly. The community is terrified of this unknown creature until an old turtle connects with the stingray and reveals the truth: The new member of their underwater community is just a “gentle” and “sweet” stingray—not a dangerous ghost. “I just want to befriend you. There’s no need to hide,” the stingray explains to the characters, who quickly make amends for their initial judgment. The story is a wonderful early entry point to showing young readers the importance of not making assumptions about their peers. Vibrant descriptor phrases like “Click-clacking teal crabs” or “wise old turtle,” paired with the curving, ripple-like flow of the text, add movement and character to the pages and marine world. The bright digital illustrations also complement the story, adding soft, expressive characteristics to the whimsical and enchanting underwater backdrop. A factual page at the end offers six kid-friendly stingray facts and invites readers to “spread your arms open wide” like a stingray, adding a science lesson to an otherwise light-hearted tale of treating strangers with kindness.
Skillfully conjures a seascape filled with adorable characters and offers a reminder to welcome difference with compassion.Pub Date: April 14, 2026
ISBN: 9781998710232
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Brown Paper Fox Inc.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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