Well-intentioned but indirect and clunky.
Anxiety hinders a child.
Olivia, a peach-skinned kid with a brown bob cut, narrates in a direct first-person voice. She lists the things she possesses—a bicycle, red shoes adorned with stars, a soft plush lion, and “vines.” The thorny vines, wrapping around her body, are a metaphor for anxiety. They are brought on by being late, going to the dentist, talking with strangers, anticipatory fear of adults’ anger, and sometimes “NOTHING AT ALL!” Despite Olivia’s helpful teacher, the vines are exhausting and prevent Olivia from moving freely, doing math, and jumping off the diving board at the pool. Although the characters’ facial expressions are crystal clear, the text never decodes the vines as representing anxiety. The prose, including Olivia’s introduction about her bike, shoes, and stuffed animal, may prompt young readers to think that physical vines are causing Olivia’s stress. Forced textual playfulness in the teacher’s nicknames for the students (“my little monkey in flip-flops” and “my little chocolate frog”) is jarring and inorganic. The illustrations bring nothing special and, bizarrely, include the stuffed lion in a group of people Olivia imagines mocking her. Moreover, vine-wrapped Olivia’s self-chosen label as “a big, spiky ball that no one wants to be near” will sting readers who have anxiety. Reach for Anthony Browne’s What If…? (2014) and Patrick McDonnell’s A Perfectly Messed-Up Story (2014) instead.
Well-intentioned but indirect and clunky. (activities) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4598-3103-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
A gentle, appropriate answer to a perennial question.
When a small boy learns a baby’s coming to his family, he wonders where it’s coming from.
In words and pictures, the unnamed narrator’s imagination builds a variety of possibilities from the pat responses to his query he gets from a teenage friend, a teacher, the mailman and his grandfather. Finally, he asks his parents. Their simple explanation about a seed, an egg and birth in a hospital helps him see that all the other answers (except for Grandpa’s story about the stork) were partially right. As she did in Are You Awake? (2011), Blackall captures the natures of children’s curiosity and family conversations. Her ink-and-watercolor illustrations include plenty of white space. They show the rosy-cheeked boy engaged in typical kid activities at home, at school and while visiting his grandfather. His question is not burning, but time passes and he gets more and more confused. (And his mother gets visibly pregnant.) The pacing is leisurely and the tone gently humorous, and the answer includes no anatomical details. Modern in its imagery (both parents have smartphones plugged in by the bed), this is just right for initiating a conversation with a 4- to 6-year-old child. A final page for parents covers less typical family situations: twins, adoption and single-sex couples.
A gentle, appropriate answer to a perennial question. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25718-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
SEEN & HEARD
An attractive introduction to the topic.
Ajmera’s To Be a Kid (with co-author and photographer John D. Ivanko, 1999) focused on kids the world over engaged in play; in a similar format, this latest examines what children need in order to stay healthy.
Eye-catching photos are the centerpiece of this book. Each spread lists one thing that healthy kids need—“Healthy kids need clean water to drink”—while the labeled photographs show several children from different countries and how that need is met for them: A child drinks from a water fountain in Japan, and another uses a pump well in India; in Ghana, a girl pours water from a bucket carried atop her head. Healthy kids also need good food, clean bodies and teeth, a place to use the bathroom, a home, medical care and vaccinations, exercise, protection from the elements, safety gear such as seat belts and helmets, and most of all, loving families and communities. A multicolored world map highlights the countries mentioned, and backmatter explains how, in some areas of the world, those needs are difficult to meet and what kids, no matter where they live, can do to make sure they stay healthy. When this is paired with the likes of David J. Smith’s This Child, Every Child (illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong, 2011), readers will learn not only what kids need, but just how many kids lack these basic necessities.
An attractive introduction to the topic. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58089-436-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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