A joyful, inclusive celebration of one child’s potential and what really matters in life.
A young child contemplates the future in this inclusive picture book.
Adults often ask kids what they want to “be” when they grow up (Scientist? Architect?), but the protagonist of Murray’s story yearns to be asked how they want to be. The child imagines a future spent living a peaceful life “full of laughter and joy,” maintaining a strong connection to the Earth, and finding hidden beauty in the ordinary. They ultimately conclude that whatever their future job may be, it will “never define” them. The text is written using an ABCB rhyme scheme that helps the narrative flow toward its uplifting conclusion. Blake’s illustrations are simple but effective, with pastel colors that reflect the narrator’s inner journey—nighttime scenes full of colorful cosmic swirls, for example, emphasize the child’s infinite potential. While the representation of racial diversity is minimal (only a single picture represents multiple skin colors), Murray’s enchanting prose clearly radiates acceptance and inclusivity for all—especially those in the LGBTQ+ community. From omitting any reference to the narrator’s gender to the rainbow shorts they wear throughout the story to the child’s hope to be a parent one day to a “girl or boy. Or a they or a them,” the focus remains on embracing and loving one’s authentic self.
A joyful, inclusive celebration of one child’s potential and what really matters in life.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781964934396
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Blue Balloon Books
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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