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BABA'S PEACH TREE

Name: BABA'S PEACH TREE
Author: Marie Tang
ISBN: 9780593565070

by Marie Tang ; illustrated by Seo Kim ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2024

A touching tribute to migrant workers who blossom in any soil.

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Just as their beloved peach tree cycles through seasons of change, so, too, do the lives of a father and child.

Tao Hua and Baba live in the mountains of China. Life isn’t easy, and they always have work to do, but they have each other…and a lovely peach tree that Baba tends to all year. Using poetic but matter-of-fact language, Tang describes this blessing in their lives (“Our tree’s cloud of flowers turned magenta like the sky at dinnertime”). Baba brings in extra income selling the peaches during the summer. Each day he saves the best one for Tao Hua, and every night, the child buries the pit in the field behind the house. One year, the peach tree fails to blossom; it’s reached the end of its life cycle. Baba works a series of jobs to earn money. Finally, he lands a stable job in the city, a dreary place without “peach sun” that nevertheless offers many opportunities. Years later, when Tao Hua has blossomed into an adult and Baba has grown old, they return to their mountain home. Rather than finding a single peach tree, they see “a rainbow of pink and red [reaching] high into the sky.” Kim’s delicate, expressive art portrays both the beauty of the natural world and this loving family’s indomitable spirit.

A touching tribute to migrant workers who blossom in any soil. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: May 14, 2024

ISBN: 9780593565070

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House Studio

Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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THE BIG CHEESE

From the Food Group series

by Jory John ; illustrated by Pete Oswald ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2023

From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers.

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A winning wheel of cheddar with braggadocio to match narrates a tale of comeuppance and redemption.

From humble beginnings among kitchen curds living “quiet lives of pasteurization,” the Big Cheese longs to be the best and builds success and renown based on proven skills and dependable results: “I stuck to the things I was good at.” When newcomer Wedge moves to the village of Curds-on-Whey, the Cheese’s star status wobbles and falls. Turns out that quiet, modest Wedge is also multitalented. At the annual Cheese-cathlon, Wedge bests six-time winner Cheese in every event, from the footrace and chess to hat making and bread buttering. A disappointed Cheese throws a full-blown tantrum before arriving at a moment of truth: Self-calming, conscious breathing permits deep relief that losing—even badly—does not result in disaster. A debrief with Wedge “that wasn’t all about me” leads to further realizations: Losing builds empathy for others; obsession with winning obscures “the joy of participating.” The chastened cheddar learns to reserve bragging for lifting up friends, because anyone can be the Big Cheese. More didactic and less pun-rich than previous entries in the Food Group series, this outing nevertheless couples a cheerful refrain with pithy life lessons that hit home. Oswald’s detailed, comical illustrations continue to provide laughs, including a spot with Cheese onstage doing a “CHED” talk.

From curds to riches, from meltdown to uplift—this multicourse romp delivers. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023

ISBN: 9780063329508

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)