A fun and lighthearted story about adoption.
J.J., a newborn baby with ruddy skin, is adopted into a rambunctious family. Each of his four siblings, who are loud and energetic, clamor around, attempting to touch him, although he is fast asleep. The dog barks, the washing machine beeps, and the siblings thunder through the house, playing and making music, but J.J. sleeps through the din. When all of the siblings leave the house for a weekend to participate in various extracurricular activities, J.J. cannot sleep—it is too quiet! For the first time, he wails inconsolably and grows cranky. It is only when his boisterous siblings return—giggling, chasing each other, and loudly regaling their parents with stories—that J.J. finally dozes off. Adoptive parents in children’s books are usually White, but Garbutt’s story refreshingly features both adoptive parents and an adoption agent who present as people of color; J.J.’s siblings are also racially diverse. This offering further sets itself apart from other children’s books about adoption by telling a story about an adopted child that does not focus explicitly on the experience of adoption. However, like so many picture books portraying adopted children, Garbutt’s narrative presents a simplistic, one-sided view that focuses solely on a happy homecoming and fails to mention anything about J.J.’s birthparents, perpetuating the stereotype that the true life of adoptees begins at adoption.
A sweet story about what makes a house a home and a portrayal of adoption that has its merits and shortcomings. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0419-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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In this deceptively spare, very beginning reader, a girl assembles a robot and then treats it like a slave until it goes on strike.
Having put the robot together from a jumble of loose parts, the budding engineer issues an increasingly peremptory series of rhymed orders— “Throw, Bot. / Row, Bot”—that turn from playful activities like chasing bubbles in the yard to tasks like hoeing the garden, mowing the lawn and towing her around in a wagon. Jung crafts a robot with riveted edges, big googly eyes and a smile that turns down in stages to a scowl as the work is piled on. At last, the exhausted robot plops itself down, then in response to its tormentor’s angry “Don’t say no, Bot!” stomps off in a huff. In one to four spacious, sequential panels per spread, Jung develops both the plotline and the emotional conflict using smoothly modeled cartoon figures against monochromatic or minimally detailed backgrounds. The child’s commands, confined in small dialogue balloons, are rhymed until her repentant “Come on home, Bot” breaks the pattern but leads to a more equitable division of labor at the end.
A straightforward tale of conflict and reconciliation for newly emergent readers? Not exactly, which raises it above the rest. (Easy reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-87083-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Drawing on lyrics from her Mormon children’s hymn of the same title, Pearson explores diversity and acceptance in a more secular context.
Addressing people of varying ages, races, origins, and abilities in forced rhymes that omit the original version’s references to Jesus, various speakers describe how they—unlike “some people”—will “show [their] love for” their fellow humans. “If you don’t talk as most people do / some people talk and laugh at you,” a child tells a tongue-tied classmate. “But I won’t! / I won’t! / I’ll talk with you / and giggle too. / That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Unfortunately, many speakers’ actions feel vague and rather patronizing even as they aim to include and reassure. “I know you bring such interesting things,” a wheelchair user says, welcoming a family “born far, far away” who arrives at the airport; the adults wear Islamic clothing. As pink- and brown-skinned worshipers join a solitary brown-skinned person who somehow “[doesn’t] pray as some people pray” on a church pew, a smiling, pink-skinned worshiper’s declaration that “we’re all, I see, one family” raises echoes of the problematic assertion, “I don’t see color.” The speakers’ exclamations of “But I won’t!” after noting others’ prejudiced behavior reads more as self-congratulation than promise of inclusion. Sanders’ geometric, doll-like human figures are cheery but stiff, and the text’s bold, uppercase typeface switches jarringly to cursive for the refrain, “That’s how I’ll show my love for you.” Characters’ complexions include paper-white, yellow, pink, and brown.
An unfortunately simplistic delivery of a well-intentioned message. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4236-5395-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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