A bighearted story with a meaningful message of perseverance.
In Brooks’ picture book, a girl learns at a yoga class that it’s OK not to be perfect.
Posey is very good at many things—dancing, drawing, climbing trees—so when she tries a yoga class, she assumes she’ll have the same kind of immediate success. Instead, “her boat pose…sank. She had a sagging…plank. And her fish pose just plain…stank.” Miss Flora, the yoga instructor, tells her, “Perfect’s not the point,” but Posey quits the class anyway. Still, Miss Flora’s advice keeps coming back to her. After her dance class, Posey wiggles around on the floor, becoming aware of her own breathing, and finds that “the jumbly parts of her brain unjumbled a bit.” She decides to give yoga another try but falls when attempting a balancing pose, only to discover that everyone else fell down, too—even Miss Flora. Posey takes a deep breath, smiles, and keeps trying. Brooks’ book ends with some helpful instructions for attempting the story’s yoga poses. Quitting a hobby or activity after not immediately being good at it is something that many kids (and surely some adults) will find relatable. Children’s stories about conquering perfectionism are relatively rare, but this one is told very well: Posey is sweet and sympathetic, and Heikura’s soft, swirly pastel illustrations are the perfect complement.
A bighearted story with a meaningful message of perseverance.Pub Date: June 9, 2026
ISBN: 9781967113132
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Spinning Wheel Stories
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This warm family story is a splendid showcase for the combined talents of Medina, a Pura Belpré award winner, and Dominguez,...
Abuela is coming to stay with Mia and her parents. But how will they communicate if Mia speaks little Spanish and Abuela, little English? Could it be that a parrot named Mango is the solution?
The measured, evocative text describes how Mia’s español is not good enough to tell Abuela the things a grandmother should know. And Abuela’s English is too poquito to tell Mia all the stories a granddaughter wants to hear. Mia sets out to teach her Abuela English. A red feather Abuela has brought with her to remind her of a wild parrot that roosted in her mango trees back home gives Mia an idea. She and her mother buy a parrot they name Mango. And as Abuela and Mia teach Mango, and each other, to speak both Spanish and English, their “mouths [fill] with things to say.” The accompanying illustrations are charmingly executed in ink, gouache, and marker, “with a sprinkling of digital magic.” They depict a cheery urban neighborhood and a comfortable, small apartment. Readers from multigenerational immigrant families will recognize the all-too-familiar language barrier. They will also cheer for the warm and loving relationship between Abuela and Mia, which is evident in both text and illustrations even as the characters struggle to understand each other. A Spanish-language edition, Mango, Abuela, y yo, gracefully translated by Teresa Mlawer, publishes simultaneously.
This warm family story is a splendid showcase for the combined talents of Medina, a Pura Belpré award winner, and Dominguez, an honoree. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6900-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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