A lively look at community, connections, and ways to foster change.
Saturdays are a flurry of chores at Meena’s house.
She and her sisters help her mother shop and tidy up to prep the house for a deluge of visitors. Meanwhile, her brother lounges in bed reading. Meena knows this is unfair, but her mother says that’s just the way things have always been since she was a little girl growing up. Meena’s family, the first to emigrate from their village in India, help others who come later. As afternoon rolls around, aunts, uncles, and cousins fill the house with activity. While Meena makes countless cups of chai, the women prepare elaborate meals. The children entertain themselves by watching Bollywood movies and reenacting dance and action scenes. At dinner, tradition dictates that the women eat after the men. Meena knows that this, too, is unfair, and today, she decides to bring about change by sitting down to dinner with her father and the other men. The story mirrors the realities of many immigrant communities, demonstrating how families often gather to prepare and enjoy food and give new arrivals a leg up in a new land. Told in a realistically childlike voice, the narrative also highlights the gender disparity that many children encounter from a very young age. The bright watercolor illustrations are bursting with life. Traditional Indian clothes and food figure prominently as characters chatter and play in a whirlwind of chaos and togetherness.
A lively look at community, connections, and ways to foster change. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593110317
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren.
In talk-show host Fallon and illustrator Ordóñez’s latest picture-book collaboration, an elderly pooch waxes rhapsodic about a life well lived.
Observing Papa sitting in his chair watching TV all day, a young pup says, “I’m starting to think…you don’t do ANYTHING.” So Papa proceeds to list his accomplishments, both big and small, mundane and profound. Some are just a result of being older and physically bigger (being tall enough to reach a high shelf and strong enough to open jars); others include winning a race and performing in a band when he was younger. Eventually, the pup realizes that while Papa may have slowed down in his old age, he’s led a full life. The most satisfying thing about Papa’s life now? Watching his grandchild take center stage: “I can say lots of thoughts / but I choose to be quiet. / I’d rather you discover things and then try it.” Fallon’s straightforward text is sweetly upbeat, though it occasionally lacks flow, forcing incongruous situations together to fit the rhyme scheme (“I cook and I mow, / and I once flew a plane. // I play newspaper puzzles because it’s good for my brain”). Featuring uncluttered, colorful backgrounds, Ordóñez’s child-friendly digital art at times takes on sepia tones, evoking the sense of looking back at old photos or memories. Though the creators tread familiar ground, the love between Papa and his little one is palpable.
A tale of intergenerational bonding to be shared by grandparents and grandchildren. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781250393975
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
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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
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