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WHEN THE RAIN CAME DOWN

Name: WHEN THE RAIN CAME DOWN
Author: Leslie Helakoski
ISBN: 9780374390204

by Leslie Helakoski ; illustrated by Keisha Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2024

An intimate image of community and the rising tides of climate change.

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Verse and visuals help readers imagine the devastation of flooding, the hope brought by the helpers, and the long path toward healing.

“When the rain came down” is a consistent reprise in this poetic account of the rising water that displaces thousands from their diverse, urban community. Some neighbors are unable to flee the surging waters, and people can be found on rooftops, boats, and wading helplessly while holding their belongings above their heads in Morris’ evocative, collagelike illustrations. With lost dogs barking their pleas for help, the tides seem to turn as the “choppers [thump]” with assistance from above, and then the rain stops. Food is passed around as hope swells among an assortment of people—children, the elderly, dogs, and nurses. Vibrant spreads show the arrival of help “from far and wide,” in tractors and trucks, with license plates indicating Maryland, Virginia, Nevada, and New York, and in toolbelts and hardhats. As the sun reappears against the city’s skyline with the water settled in the foreground, the story concludes with an insightful author’s note detailing Helakoski’s experiences with flooding in southern Louisiana’s Bayou Vermilion and a complicated reconciliation of the beauty of the region and memories of how precarious it all is when the rain comes down.

An intimate image of community and the rising tides of climate change. (Picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: March 12, 2024

ISBN: 9780374390204

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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ARE YOUR STARS LIKE MY STARS?
by Leslie Helakoski ; illustrated by Heidi Woodward Sheffield

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READY OR NOT, WOOLBUR GOES TO SCHOOL!
by Leslie Helakoski ; illustrated by Lee Harper

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BIG PIGS
by Leslie Helakoski ; illustrated by Leslie Helakoski

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LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2015

Safe to creep on by.

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Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.

In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.

Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?
edited by Eric Carle

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WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BUG?
edited by Eric Carle

- BOOK REVIEW
MY FIRST I SEE YOU
by Eric Carle ; illustrated by Eric Carle

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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...

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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)