A useful book for elementary schoolers still struggling with big emotions.
A boy helps his nervous friend get ready for summer camp in this illustrated children’sbook about coping with difficult feelings.
Best friends Milo and Bobby always meet at the same big tree during their walks to school. One day, Milo seems upset. When he confesses to Bobby that he’s excited but scared about going to summer camp, Bobby assures him he’ll be fine. Milo’s feelings are hurt: “Milo couldn’t believe Bobby didn’t understand what a big deal this was!” With his emotions all mixed up, Milo later avoids their special tree, and Bobby wonders what he should do. Finally, he has a memory of his own first day of camp; he’d been so excited to go, but suddenly, it all felt too “big,”and he was worried he would hate it. A camp counselor’s wisdom helped him. Bobby races to catch up with Milo and gives him advice involving the word and. He explains that it’s okay to feel a lot of emotions at once, and as soon as Bobby realizes he can be both nervous andexcited at the same time, he has an easier time dealing with his big feelings. Monnerat, a veteran teacher, includes a co-author’s note to describe how the notion of andcan be freeing for children. She and Chalkley use accessible language throughout that never comes across as preachy; instead, the story feels like a conversation with a friend. The dialogue, in word bubbles that follow the characters across pages, is likely to help reluctant readers follow the conversation, and large images of emotion-related terms, sometimes in a jumble, aptly depict the sense of feelings in conflict. Some of Hopkins’ full-color cartoon illustrations seem unpolished, especially in smaller panels that lack detail, but the combination of pencil work and painted backgrounds effectively communicates the lesson. The final pages offer a fill-in-the-blank description of Milo’s first day at camp, as well as an emotion-themed puzzle.
A useful book for elementary schoolers still struggling with big emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985011012
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Kettlepot Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.
After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.
Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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