by Minh Lê ; illustrated by Raissa Figueroa ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2023
A friend is a friend, and while the twist is clever, the robust storytelling throughout will prove the book’s greatest lure.
The imaginary-friend trope gets turned on its head.
Told mostly in first person, this story follows a large furry green creature and a small Black girl who are engaged in a series of adventures. “When you have a great friend, the rest of the world can seem to disappear.” Together the two laugh and play, are brave together, and get in trouble. Others say that the friend is imaginary, but our narrator isn’t so sure. And then, one day, the friend is unexpectedly gone. Now it becomes clear that the narrator wasn’t the girl but the newly morose and lonely monster. “She was real to me.” In time our narrator makes friends with other creatures and once more has adventures and misadventures. Even so, the protagonist never forgets their first friend. It is a testament to Figueroa’s talents that while the main character may be furry, the heartbreak and longing they exude feel achingly real, as does the friendship at the center of the story. In the latter half of the book, Lê elegantly repeats phrases and cadences that appeared in the first half (thereby linking the new friends to the old), but it’s Figueroa’s lush, electric, pulsating hues and colors that bring the worldbuilding to life, with jewel tones depicting bright sunny days and illuminated nights. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A friend is a friend, and while the twist is clever, the robust storytelling throughout will prove the book’s greatest lure. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-37749-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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by Minh Lê ; illustrated by Dan Santat
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by Minh Lê ; illustrated by Dan Santat
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016
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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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
by Hoda Kotb ; illustrated by Chloe Dominique ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Pleasant enough but not particularly original.
Uplifting messages of positivity from the Today show anchor.
Hope springs eternal, so the saying goes. Kotb agrees, here delivering to children the cheery news that hope lives inside all of them and that whatever they might wish for can be theirs. All they need is a sunny outlook, and the possibilities for happy outcomes are virtually endless. Children’s dreams can be in-the-moment ones—like purple ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry—or more far-ranging ones, such as growing tall enough to reach that high shelf easily or for hair that’s long enough to braid. It doesn’t matter, the author reassures young readers. Your aspirations will be realized, so don’t give up on them—just keep believing in them and, most of all, in yourself. Throughout, Kotb calls hope a rainbow, a feeling, a gift, and a wish. Hope is “new friends you’ll find— / friends who are loving and funny and kind.” Hope is “practicing your heart out, letter by letter.” The book’s overarching theme is upbeat, but its bouncy rhyming text is clumsy. The child-appealing illustrations are colorful and lively, though they have a generic look. The cast of wide-eyed characters is racially diverse; some have visible disabilities.
Pleasant enough but not particularly original. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593624128
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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by Hoda Kotb ; illustrated by Suzie Mason
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