A well-illustrated and accessible travel tale.
Diaz’s picture book celebrates visiting family members who live far away.
Young New Yorker Noah is excited to leave for a Christmas vacation in Puerto Rico, where family members live. Noah’s friend, Tito the coqui (a small frog), is coming, too. Tito stowed away in Noah’s luggage when he came from Puerto Rico the year before, and he’s excited to go home. Noah isn’t entirely fluent in Spanish, but he’s excited to use what he knows during his trip. After arriving, the family visits El Morro in Old San Juan and gets snow cone–like piraguas. At the beach, Noah has trouble ordering snacks in Spanish, and other kids tease him for not being a “real” Puerto Rican. Later, Abuela helpfully explains that where a person lives doesn’t negate their culture, and Noah finally feels at home with his Boricua family. Readers will find this to be a relatable story about family and fitting in. Kuba’s full-color cartoon illustrations are realistic and skillfully done. The backgrounds are full of detail, and the characters are diverse in many ways; the images include small details such as facial jewelry, as well as varied skin tones and body shapes. Tito has his own adventure in the background of the story, which readers can also follow. A fair amount of clear Spanish vocabulary is included.
A well-illustrated and accessible travel tale.Pub Date: March 25, 2024
ISBN: 9781960603036
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Fly the World Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
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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