by Kyla May ; illustrated by Kyla May ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2013
A good choice for girls who love sparkles
“I am Kiki, World-Famous Style Star!”
Meet Kiki, budding fashionista, expert shopper, enthusiastic dog lover, devoted chicken caregiver and excellent friend. Since her mom is going away for a week for her work as a fashion stylist, Kiki is keeping a journal to apprise her of everything that goes on, particularly the adventures of the Lotus Lane Girls Club (Kiki and her friends Lulu and Coco). In an accessible diary format that includes texts, drawings of Kiki’s various outfits and side commentary, Kiki relates—in preteenspeak —some of the highs (pajama parties, cupcake baking, outfit planning) and lows (stressing over a school project, failing to befriend new classmate Mika) of being an elementary school girl. When it turns out that both Kiki and Mika have chosen to create fashions for the school art fair, the competition gets a little fierce; add to it various misunderstandings and a missing dog, and a huge mess ensues. What’s a girl to do? While admittedly very light fare with a thin plot, minimal character development and an excess of exclamation points, girly girls and fans of May’s earlier books will eat this up. Though part of the publisher’s new Branches series of chapter books, the busy format may initially stump children just graduating from early readers.
A good choice for girls who love sparkles . (Fiction. 6-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-44512-2
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Branches/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
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by Katy Hudson ; illustrated by Katy Hudson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 11, 2016
Superficially appealing; much less so upon closer examination.
When Rabbit’s unbridled mania for collecting carrots leaves him unable to sleep in his cozy burrow, other animals offer to put him up.
But to Rabbit, their homes are just more storage space for carrots: Tortoise’s overstuffed shell cracks open; the branch breaks beneath Bird’s nest; Squirrel’s tree trunk topples over; and Beaver’s bulging lodge collapses at the first rainstorm. Impelled by guilt and the epiphany that “carrots weren’t for collecting—they were for SHARING!” Rabbit invites his newly homeless friends into his intact, and inexplicably now-roomy, burrow for a crunchy banquet. This could be read (with some effort) as a lightly humorous fable with a happy ending, and Hudson’s depictions of carrot-strewn natural scenes, of Rabbit as a plush bunny, and of the other animals as, at worst, mildly out of sorts support that take. Still, the insistent way Rabbit keeps forcing himself on his friends and the magnitude of the successive disasters may leave even less-reflective readers disturbed. Moreover, as Rabbit is never seen actually eating a carrot, his stockpiling looks a lot like the sort of compulsive hoarding that, in humans, is regarded as a mental illness.
Superficially appealing; much less so upon closer examination. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62370-638-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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by Katy Hudson ; illustrated by Katy Hudson
by Cleo Wade ; illustrated by Lucie de Moyencourt ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 23, 2021
Inspiration, shrink wrapped.
From an artist, poet, and Instagram celebrity, a pep talk for all who question where a new road might lead.
Opening by asking readers, “Have you ever wanted to go in a different direction,” the unnamed narrator describes having such a feeling and then witnessing the appearance of a new road “almost as if it were magic.” “Where do you lead?” the narrator asks. The Road’s twice-iterated response—“Be a leader and find out”—bookends a dialogue in which a traveler’s anxieties are answered by platitudes. “What if I fall?” worries the narrator in a stylized, faux hand-lettered type Wade’s Instagram followers will recognize. The Road’s dialogue and the narration are set in a chunky, sans-serif type with no quotation marks, so the one flows into the other confusingly. “Everyone falls at some point, said the Road. / But I will always be there when you land.” Narrator: “What if the world around us is filled with hate?” Road: “Lead it to love.” Narrator: “What if I feel stuck?” Road: “Keep going.” De Moyencourt illustrates this colloquy with luminous scenes of a small, brown-skinned child, face turned away from viewers so all they see is a mop of blond curls. The child steps into an urban mural, walks along a winding country road through broad rural landscapes and scary woods, climbs a rugged metaphorical mountain, then comes to stand at last, Little Prince–like, on a tiny blue and green planet. Wade’s closing claim that her message isn’t meant just for children is likely superfluous…in fact, forget the just.
Inspiration, shrink wrapped. (Picture book. 6-8, adult)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-26949-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
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