Dog owners who dread being apart during school hours will empathize with Stella Isabella.
A little girl decides kindergarten isn’t for her and decides to stay home and have her beloved yellow pup teach her instead.
Indeed, Stella Isabella Harden and her dog, Buster, are inseparable, but aside from leaving him behind, the girl doesn’t seem to have any specific worries about kindergarten. Dog school consists of playtime, snack time, nap time, and storytime, and it’s during this last that Buster slyly lets Stella Isabella know that she really must go to kindergarten, if only so she can learn to read—Buster must have a story every day. Crouse’s rhyming verses sometimes stumble, and the words and word order frequently suit the rhyme scheme and meter rather than the tale, leading to some difficult vocabulary (“contemplating,” “educator,” “proposing,” “proceeding,” “mandatory”) and some clunkers: “She figured they’d do playtime first. / She guessed that they’d be none the worse / if in the room for their first class / came with sunshine, air, and grass.” Pamintuan’s digital illustrations bring out the duo’s love and their exuberance, and he shows each sloppy kiss from Buster to his girl. Child and parents all have black hair and pale-brown skin. The kindergarten-ready checklist—supplies rather than skills—is inside the dust jacket and isn’t applicable to (or affordable for) all students: “big-kid backpack,” other supplies, “know your bus stop,” “snack or lunch.”
Dog owners who dread being apart during school hours will empathize with Stella Isabella. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62686-703-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Silver Dolphin
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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