A moving refugee story laced with optimism and magic.
A young girl and her grandparents must leave war-torn Aleppo, Syria, to find a new home.
Dounia, whose name means the world in Arabic, goes to the souk to get baraka seeds for her grandmother Teta Mouneh. The spice seller, Abdo, gives her the seeds and tells her they are magic. At home, her neighbor Mrs. Dabbouss reads the coffee grounds in Teta Mouneh’s cup and foresees an arduous journey that will end with “a blue house in a bright white country.” Teta tells Dounia to hold on to some of the seeds. One night, as the two of them dry eggplant on the roof, a bomb explodes in the courtyard, breaking windows, destroying the fountain, and killing Kiki, the family’s pet canary. Jeddo Darwish, Dounia’s grandfather, announces that they must leave and gives her a dove carved from soap. As they travel, Dounia realizes she still has several of the baraka seeds, and each time she tosses one, something happens to ease them along on their trek. In this tale translated from French, Zarif captures the perilous journey well, blending grim elements—travel by boat, barbed wire fences, soldiers—with the fantastical. The artwork has a whimsical feeling that makes the tough subject matter manageable. In an author’s note, Zarif discusses her sadness at seeing the devastating of Aleppo, where she grew up, and her hopes for her people. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A moving refugee story laced with optimism and magic. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-77147-523-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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
BOOK REVIEW
As insubstantial as hot air.
A diverse cast of children first makes a fleet of hot air balloons and then takes to the sky in them.
Lifestyle maven Gaines uses this activity as a platform to celebrate diversity in learning and working styles. Some people like to work together; others prefer a solo process. Some take pains to plan extensively; others know exactly what they want and jump right in. Some apply science; others demonstrate artistic prowess. But “see how beautiful it can be when / our differences share the same sky?” Double-page spreads leading up to this moment of liftoff are laid out such that rhyming abcb quatrains typically contain one or two opposing concepts: “Some of us are teachers / and share what we know. / But all of us are learners. / Together is how we grow!” In the accompanying illustration, a bespectacled, Asian-presenting child at a blackboard lectures the other children on “balloon safety.” Gaines’ text has the ring of sincerity, but the sentiment is hardly an original one, and her verse frequently sacrifices scansion for rhyme. Sometimes it abandons both: “We may not look / or work or think the same, / but we all have an / important part to play.” Swaney’s delicate, pastel-hued illustrations do little to expand on the text, but they are pretty. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.2-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 70.7% of actual size.)
As insubstantial as hot air. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4003-1423-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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