A chuckleworthy royal roller coaster.
After only child Princess Arabella requests a younger sibling, she questions whether she wants to be a big sister after all.
Princess Arabella gets tired of playing by herself all the time. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have…someone you could always play with?” She asks her Mum and Dad to “get a little brother or sister for [her] tomorrow.” Unfazed, her parents ask her which she would prefer. When she visits Prince Mimoun, having his little sister Laila around seems like fun—until Laila starts a fight over who got more candy. When she visits Princess Ling, having three little brothers to play with is nice—until they all clamor for the last puzzle piece, breaking the puzzle in the process. Maybe an older sister would be better? But Princess Sophie’s big sister isn’t much fun at all. Months later, Princess Arabella has decided that being an only child is actually pretty good—but Mum’s belly has grown. Princess Arabella is surprised to meet her new family members: a sister and a brother. This Belgian-via-Britain import has a dreamlike sense of the passage of time, but it stays true to the emotional ups and downs of family life. The brightly colored illustrations and straightforward story arc with a fun surprise ending are bound to please young readers. Princess Arabella and her family present black, and visual cues and characters’ names imply diversity among her friends, who are coded Muslim, Chinese, and white.
A chuckleworthy royal roller coaster. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-911115-72-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cassava Republic Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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
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