By any measure, a lovely, jolly book.
“How do you measure a year?”
By charting how much you’ve grown? By taking pride in the new things you’ve learned, created, and accomplished? By thinking about the friends you made and the experiences and feelings you had? How about all those and more? In simple, appealing, lilting rhymes, this sweet, thought-provoking picture book describes how to think about the most sacred holidays in the Jewish calendar—the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). These holidays mark not only the beginning of a new year, but also times of looking back upon the past year, reflecting on oneself, and owning up to and making up for mistakes made. A splendid feature of this book is that, without the text’s specifically mentioning it, the delightful illustrations strongly imply that a year can also be measured by how much one has widened one’s circle and opened home, mind, and heart to others—that is, how inclusive one is regarding family, friends, and neighbors. The cheery art, created with watercolor, colored pencil, and Photoshop, presents a lovely display of humanity—perfect for a new year, every year, and every day: Children and adults are diverse in skin tone, hair color, and physical ability. Jewish readers will appreciate depictions of Jewish culture throughout, including symbols and joyous holidays and celebrations. Endpapers highlight Rosh Hashanah’s delicious symbols—apples and honey—signifying a “sweet New Year.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
By any measure, a lovely, jolly book. (information on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4497-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their...
Ruby is an adventurous and happy child until the day she discovers a Worry.
Ruby barely sees the Worry—depicted as a blob of yellow with a frowny unibrow—at first, but as it hovers, the more she notices it and the larger it grows. The longer Ruby is affected by this Worry, the fewer colors appear on the page. Though she tries not to pay attention to the Worry, which no one else can see, ignoring it prevents her from enjoying the things that she once loved. Her constant anxiety about the Worry causes the bright yellow blob to crowd Ruby’s everyday life, which by this point is nearly all washes of gray and white. But at the playground, Ruby sees a boy sitting on a bench with a growing sky-blue Worry of his own. When she invites the boy to talk, his Worry begins to shrink—and when Ruby talks about her own Worry, it also grows smaller. By the book’s conclusion, Ruby learns to control her Worry by talking about what worries her, a priceless lesson for any child—or adult—conveyed in a beautifully child-friendly manner. Ruby presents black, with hair in cornrows and two big afro-puff pigtails, while the boy has pale skin and spiky black hair.
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their feelings (. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0237-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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