For those kids who find nasty sisters, cleaning, and losing a shoe to be too tame, this is a daredevil alternative.
A daredevil prince meets his perfect Cinderella, and they begin a “most adventurous friendship.”
Bathing in the crocodile-filled moat and toasting marshmallows by dragon’s breath are par for the course for Prince Dashing. At the royal ice cream social, he meets a blonde who can keep up with his crazy antics—playing “Für Elise” with her toes while doing a backbend while the prince roller-blades across the top of the piano. But at the stroke of bedtime, she is gone, leaving behind only her pogo stick, which the prince calls a “stick-thingy.” The girl who can make the right sound with the stick—ZING-BOING!—will be the honored guest at the prince’s birthday party. But of course, the prince can’t do things the easy way; he will search for “Stickerella” blindfolded, which makes for lots of humorous mishaps and near misses. West’s brightly colored vignette and double-page-spread illustrations are full of funny details, especially the scenes in the zoo. Nicely, this fairy-tale heroine isn’t in need of saving—there’s no stepmother and no forced labor, though she does clean her own home.
For those kids who find nasty sisters, cleaning, and losing a shoe to be too tame, this is a daredevil alternative. (Fractured fairy tale. 4-7)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63450-161-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their...
Ruby is an adventurous and happy child until the day she discovers a Worry.
Ruby barely sees the Worry—depicted as a blob of yellow with a frowny unibrow—at first, but as it hovers, the more she notices it and the larger it grows. The longer Ruby is affected by this Worry, the fewer colors appear on the page. Though she tries not to pay attention to the Worry, which no one else can see, ignoring it prevents her from enjoying the things that she once loved. Her constant anxiety about the Worry causes the bright yellow blob to crowd Ruby’s everyday life, which by this point is nearly all washes of gray and white. But at the playground, Ruby sees a boy sitting on a bench with a growing sky-blue Worry of his own. When she invites the boy to talk, his Worry begins to shrink—and when Ruby talks about her own Worry, it also grows smaller. By the book’s conclusion, Ruby learns to control her Worry by talking about what worries her, a priceless lesson for any child—or adult—conveyed in a beautifully child-friendly manner. Ruby presents black, with hair in cornrows and two big afro-puff pigtails, while the boy has pale skin and spiky black hair.
A valuable asset to the library of a child who experiences anxiety and a great book to get children talking about their feelings (. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0237-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
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