A beautiful tale that grants young readers permission to be all of who they are.
Loving ballet and basketball, Ina brings high jumps, twirls, and layups to both.
The light brown–skinned girl on the cover, her hair in two Bantu knots, pairs her ballet tights and tutu with basketball shorts and sneakers. The rhyming story opens with Ina warming up at a ballet barre on the sidelines of a basketball court. Illustrating Ina’s parallel enjoyment of ballet and basketball, Casal balances a double-page spread of the girl striking six ballet poses with one of her performing six basketball moves a few pages later. And the fact that her dribble and plié require the same bending and her grand jeté resembles a leap on the basketball court suggests not only that she adores them both, but that ballet enhances her basketball playing and vice versa. When a light-skinned blond basketball player points at Ina and says, “Dancers dance and players play! This is B-ball, not ballet!” Ina replies confidently, “Wait until you see me fly.” And fly she does. While there’s a sweetness to Casal’s wonderfully composed digital illustrations, they also carefully show the parallels between ballet and basketball as well as the protagonist’s sense of community with other, racially diverse players and dancers, in the artistic details, color choices, and dramatic overhead shots. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A beautiful tale that grants young readers permission to be all of who they are. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780593567098
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads.
Emma deals with jitters before playing the guitar in the school talent show.
Pop musician Kevin Jonas and his wife, Danielle, put performance at the center of their picture-book debut. When Emma is intimidated by her very talented friends, the encouragement of her younger sister, Bella, and the support of her family help her to shine her own light. The story is straightforward and the moral familiar: Draw strength from your family and within to overcome your fears. Employing the performance-anxiety trope that’s been written many times over, the book plods along predictably—there’s nothing really new or surprising here. Dawson’s full-color digital illustrations center a White-presenting family along with Emma’s three friends of color: Jamila has tanned skin and wears a hijab; Wendy has dark brown skin and Afro puffs; and Luis has medium brown skin. Emma’s expressive eyes and face are the real draw of the artwork—from worry to embarrassment to joy, it’s clear what she’s feeling. A standout double-page spread depicts Emma’s talent show performance, with a rainbow swirl of music erupting from an amp and Emma rocking a glam outfit and electric guitar. Overall, the book reads pretty plainly, buoyed largely by the artwork. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35207-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
The snappy text will get toes tapping, but the information it carries is limited.
Dancing is one of the most universal elements of cultures the world over.
In onomatopoeic, rhyming text, Bolling encourages readers to dance in styles including folk dance, classical ballet, breakdancing, and line dancing. Read aloud, the zippy text will engage young children: “Tappity Tap / Fingers Snap,” reads the rhyme on the double-page spread for flamenco; “Jiggity-Jig / Zig-zag-zig” describes Irish step dancing. The ballet pages stereotypically include only children in dresses or tutus, but one of these dancers wears hijab. Overall, children included are racially diverse and vary in gender presentation. Diaz’s illustrations show her background in animated films; her active child dancers generally have the large-eyed sameness of cartoon characters. The endpapers, with shoes and musical instruments, could become a matching game with pages in the book. The dances depicted are described at the end, including kathak from India and kuku from Guinea, West Africa. Unfortunately, these explanations are quite rudimentary. Kathak dancers use their facial expressions extensively in addition to the “movements of their hands and their jingling feet,” as described in the book. Although today kuku is danced at all types of celebrations in several countries, it was once done after fishing, an activity acknowledged in the illustrations but not mentioned in the explanatory text.
The snappy text will get toes tapping, but the information it carries is limited. (Informational picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63592-142-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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