A sweet celebration of the joys of childhood and the light that children bring to the world.
In this debut picture book, a star in the night sky wishes it could be a human child.
Countless children have grown up making wishes inspired by the nursery rhyme “Star Light, Star Bright.” In this story, Ollie imagines what that selfsame star might wish for: to be born on Earth and have loving parents and siblings; to feel sunshine and snow; to wear clothes and eat cookies; to smell flowers and hug trees and bring comfort to those who are sad. At the story’s end, the star’s wish is granted, and it becomes the bright light at the heart of a newborn. “Please let me be human,” / Little Star pleaded with love. / “I have seen all their magic / way up here from above.” The author narrates in rhyming couplets broken into quatrains. The rhythm flows nicely, but it occasionally stumbles over extraneous syllables. The situations depicted are filled with joy and a simple, unadulterated appreciation of being alive. The star’s imaginings are vividly rendered in Bardy’s dreamy, two-page-spread digital illustrations, which feature hazy textures and brush strokes evocative of wishes made and granted. The star’s dreamt-of human form is a light skinned, dark haired girl, but its conception of child interactions incorporates gender and racial diversity, as well as one child in a wheelchair.
A sweet celebration of the joys of childhood and the light that children bring to the world.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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