Worth it, dirt and all.
A kid entrepreneur sells dirt to finance a snazzy new soccer ball.
An interactive narrator introduces and talks with Birdie, a youngster peering at a newspaper through oversized yellow spectacles. When the narrator asks what Birdie is looking at, the kid flips the paper around to show an ad for the XR1000 Super Extreme Soccer Ball. Short the $24.95 needed to purchase the “beautiful” ball, Birdie takes the narrator’s recommendation that a yard sale may garner the necessary funds. The yard sale turns out to be a bad business model (low market demand) so Birdie brainstorms something else: a literal yard sale. Birdie starts selling dirt from the yard for 25 bucks a sack. Still no customers. When Birdie marks down the price to 25 cents—and starts advertising “dirt cheap cheap dirt”—the coins finally roll in. Birdie uses the hard-earned money to buy the soccer ball. But what use is the ball if there is no longer a lawn to play soccer on? Hoffmann cleverly intertwines early math skills with messages of working toward goals and problem-solving. Readers will learn alongside Birdie different ways to add up change. Birdie’s approachable, can-do attitude plays well off the narrator-knows-best tone to create some genuine comedy. The gently absurd illustrations offer a lush suburban landscape, expressive scenes, and racially diverse neighbors; Birdie has pale skin and black pigtails.
Worth it, dirt and all. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1994-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.
After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.
Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.
Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622360
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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