A sensitive and honest portrayal of grief and love.
A girl lives on a sanctuary for farm animals in Wisham’s picture book.
Alessia, who has pale skin and brown hair, cares for animals that other people haven’t treated well, including “horses, donkeys, goats, sheep, alpacas, emus, chickens, turkeys, peacocks, and lots of pigs.” One day, a lamb arrives, and Alessia names her Yodi. She feeds the new arrival with a bottle until she’s big enough to follow her everywhere she goes. Yodi has a big appetite and sometimes gets into forbidden parts of the sanctuary, but Alessia doesn’t mind. When Yodi doesn’t seem like her usual, playful self, Alessia takes her to the vet who discovers the lamb has copper poisoning from eating chickens’ food. When Yodi dies, Alessia sinks into sadness. Wisham’s graceful text has a nurturing tone that invites discussion of the story’s important themes, and the narrative walks young readers through the grief process: Alessia blames herself, feels angry, avoids friends, and loses interest in new animal arrivals. Eventually, months later, Alessia begins to feel like her old self and opens her heart to a new animal, although she never forgets Yodi. Mejia’s full-color cartoon illustrations clearly depict the seasons, the greenery, and the sanctuary’s animals, and her use of color gets across how a loss can make everything seem to fade.
A sensitive and honest portrayal of grief and love.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2022
ISBN: 979-8887967790
Page Count: 36
Publisher: SNOUT KISS PRESS
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Yes, the Pigeon has to go to school, and so do readers, and this book will surely ease the way.
All the typical worries and excuses kids have about school are filtered through Willems’ hysterical, bus-loving Pigeon.
Told mostly in speech balloons, the bird’s monologue will have kids (and their caregivers) in stitches at Pigeon’s excuses. From already knowing everything (except whatever question readers choose to provide in response to “Go ahead—ask me a question. / Any question!”) to fearing learning too much (“My head might pop off”), Pigeon’s imagination has run wild. Readers familiar with Pigeon will recognize the muted, matte backgrounds that show off the bird’s shenanigans so well. As in previous outings, Willems varies the size of the pigeon on the page to help communicate emotion, the bird teeny small on the double-page spread that illustrates the confession that “I’m… / scared.” And Pigeon’s eight-box rant about all the perils of school (“The unknown stresses me out, dude”) is marvelously followed by the realization (complete with lightbulb thought bubble) that school is the place for students to practice, with experts, all those skills they don’t yet have. But it is the ending that is so Willems, so Pigeon, and so perfect. Pigeon’s last question is “Well, HOW am I supposed to get there, anyway!?!” Readers will readily guess both the answer and Pigeon’s reaction.
Yes, the Pigeon has to go to school, and so do readers, and this book will surely ease the way. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-368-04645-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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