by Koos Meinderts & illustrated by Annette Fienieg ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2012
A lovely parable for our times from an acclaimed Dutch husband/wife team.
A mountaintop is home to the man in the clouds, so called by the villagers in the valley below.
How he came to be there, no one knows, but every day he sits in his wooden cottage and draws inspiration from a beautiful landscape painting on his wall. Villagers escape the drudgery of their lives by climbing up to gaze upon the painting, ignoring the beauty of the scenery along the way. The old man welcomes all sorts to his modest home, but when a stranger comes to see his famous painting and puts the idea into his head that selling it could make him rich, he can no longer just enjoy it for the peace it gave him. Fearful and unhappy, his attitude toward the painting and his visitors changes, and he makes a fateful decision. Written in the style of a traditional tale, this very readable story is richly amplified by Fienieg's soft watercolors, from the invitingly skewed lines of the house to the foreboding shadows that reflect the man's darkening mood. The simplicity of the idyllic setting is echoed in the unadorned typeface. Endpapers depict a grand view of valleys between mountaintops just touched with sunlight, a hint of what awaits those who can appreciate what they already have.
A lovely parable for our times from an acclaimed Dutch husband/wife team. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-935954-13-2
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Lemniscaat USA
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
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by Koos Meinderts ; illustrated by Annette Fienieg ; adapted by MaryChris Bradley
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by Hoda Kotb ; illustrated by Chloe Dominique ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Pleasant enough but not particularly original.
Uplifting messages of positivity from the Today show anchor.
Hope springs eternal, so the saying goes. Kotb agrees, here delivering to children the cheery news that hope lives inside all of them and that whatever they might wish for can be theirs. All they need is a sunny outlook, and the possibilities for happy outcomes are virtually endless. Children’s dreams can be in-the-moment ones—like purple ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry—or more far-ranging ones, such as growing tall enough to reach that high shelf easily or for hair that’s long enough to braid. It doesn’t matter, the author reassures young readers. Your aspirations will be realized, so don’t give up on them—just keep believing in them and, most of all, in yourself. Throughout, Kotb calls hope a rainbow, a feeling, a gift, and a wish. Hope is “new friends you’ll find— / friends who are loving and funny and kind.” Hope is “practicing your heart out, letter by letter.” The book’s overarching theme is upbeat, but its bouncy rhyming text is clumsy. The child-appealing illustrations are colorful and lively, though they have a generic look. The cast of wide-eyed characters is racially diverse; some have visible disabilities.
Pleasant enough but not particularly original. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593624128
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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by Hoda Kotb ; illustrated by Suzie Mason
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016
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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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
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