An empathetic book about how chronic conditions may limit a parent’s activity, but never their love.
A young boy explains what it’s like to have a parent with a chronic illness in Guzmán’s picture book.
Alex and his mother (both portrayed with pale skin), along with their dog, Nico, sometimes go on adventures together—but often, “Mommy…wants to play with us but her body can’t.” Over a week, Mom experiences a new symptom each day—her specific illness isn’t disclosed—which Alex then explains to Nico, using easy-to-understand similes: “Mama can’t hike with us: her body is stiff like a ROBOT.” Each explanation concludes with his knowledge that his mother cares about him: She can’t go to the movies, but “I know she loves us by the way she plays puzzles with us when we return.” Although the story acknowledges that Alex often feels sad—as many kids would—it ends with a firmly hopeful assertion that Mom is seeing doctors to get well, and “better days” are ahead. It’s a tough subject for a kids’ book, but the straightforward text is perfectly augmented by Rewerenda’s soft, pastellike illustrations, often featuring literal depictions of Mom’s described discomfort—inviting readers to imagine, for instance, how it would feel to carry an elephant. It’s an impressively compassionate story about how persistent illness can affect a family.
An empathetic book about how chronic conditions may limit a parent’s activity, but never their love.Pub Date: April 5, 2025
ISBN: 9798992007206
Page Count: 32
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts.
In this latest slice in the Food Group series, Humble Pie learns to stand up to a busy friend who’s taking advantage of his pal’s hard work on the sidelines.
Jake the Cake and Humble Pie are good friends. Where Pie is content to toil in the background, Jake happily shines in the spotlight. Alert readers will notice that Pie’s always right there, too, getting A-pluses and skiing expertly just behind—while also doing the support work that keeps every school and social project humming. “Fact: Nobody notices pie when there’s cake nearby!” When the two friends pair up for a science project, things begin well. But when the overcommitted Jake makes excuse after excuse, showing up late or not at all, a panicked Pie realizes that they won’t finish in time. When Jake finally shows up on the night before the project’s due, Pie courageously confronts him. “And for once, I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.” The friends talk it out and collaborate through the night for the project’s successful presentation in class the next day. John and Oswald’s winning recipe—plentiful puns and delightful visual jokes—has yielded another treat here. The narration does skew didactic as it wraps up: “There’s nothing wrong with having a tough conversation, asking for help, or making sure you’re being treated fairly.” But it’s all good fun, in service of some gentle lessons about social-emotional development.
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780063469730
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This lacks the information of other nonfiction titles and the pizzazz of April Pulley Sayre’s Go, Go, Grapes! (2012), but it...
The prolific Gibbons tackles fruits—how they grow, their parts, and what portions we eat.
Beginning with facts about perennial and annual fruits and how many servings children should aim for each day, the book then looks at how fruits can grow on plants, bushes, vines, and trees. Good vocabulary is introduced and defined along the way—botanist, pollination, cultivated. The middle of the book is taken up by individual looks at 13 different kinds of fruits that show cutaway views labeled with parts, the whole plant/bush/vine/tree, and some of the popular varieties—for grapes, golden muscat, red flame, and concord. This is followed by a discussion of growing seasons and climates, large farms versus backyard ones, harvesting fruit and getting it to market, and some other fruits that were not featured in the text, including star fruits, apricots, and persimmons. A final page lists more fruit facts and two websites (one for the United States, one for Canada) about food guidelines. The text sometimes gets lost in Gibbons’ busy and full pages, and while her illustrations are detailed and specific for each type of fruit, the watercolors won’t make mouths water.
This lacks the information of other nonfiction titles and the pizzazz of April Pulley Sayre’s Go, Go, Grapes! (2012), but it may be just the ticket before a school trip to a farm. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3204-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
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