A wonderful depiction of a daily bedtime ritual for a family that happens to be black.
As effectively as Good Night Moon and Grandfather Twilight, this book will help children get ready for sleep.
When it’s Zaza’s bedtime, her six stuffed-animal friends get individual attention as she tucks them in for the night. George Giraffe is so long he requires two beds, over which Zaza stretches his soft blue body out for a rest. The spotted and flowered Bobby gets a tummy tickle; Mo, the snake, hears a song; and Pinkie, the rabbit, gets cuddled. Red bear Rosie, Zaza’s favorite, receives the most special attention. All of this love gets showered back on Zaza when Mommy enters. Mother and daughter both have deep brown skin and natural hair. Zaza’s afro puffs encircle her head, and Mommy wears a full Afro—offering much-needed mirrors for black and brown children. Despite the quietude of this good-night story, the bold, solid-colored, bright background for each image and the contrasting busy patterns on the stuffed animals and Zaza’s bedspread make it feel like a wide-awake story until the final, soothing-pink background lulls readers to sleep. Observant children will also notice that the eyes of the stuffed animals open and close—suggesting that they might be as alive as Zaza.
A wonderful depiction of a daily bedtime ritual for a family that happens to be black. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-60537-461-1
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Clavis
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A miss.
Poor Alan really needs to go!
In a text rife with potty-humor punning, Alan (a blue teddy bear), is in line to go “whizzing down the very tall slide with his friends” at a fair when he starts dancing furiously. Giraffe and others ask why he’s doing this, and he explains “I need to wee!” But he doesn’t want to interrupt his fun to take care of business. Unfortunately, delays, long lines, and other impediments on the way to the potty make the situation “desperate.” Alan searches for quasi-potties but is stymied at every turn: He can’t use a doll’s toilet because it’s the “teeny tiny” one in her dollhouse; Robot objects to his attempted use of a teapot: “It’s…not a wee-pot!”; Magic Rabbit exclaims, “Don’t even think about it!” when Alan nearly pees in its hat. When Alan inadvertently ends up dancing away on stage, he wins first prize in a contest and is awarded a large, gold trophy, which he promptly uses to relieve himself. What happens to the resulting urine is left to readers to ponder, though perhaps many would rather leave the book aside without solving that mystery, since the story’s seemingly interminable chain of events grows tiresome well before its resolution. The busy digital illustrations with a palette verging on the garish don’t offer much relief.
A miss. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9039-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
When separated from its purported goals, the book is a fine addition to toddler shelves.
A pull-the-tab book about the trials and tribulations of bathtime.
On each page of this English translation of a French board book, an animal parent prepares their child to take a bath in a Western-style bathroom. On many pages, the child resists the bath, but with one pull of a sliding tab, readers see the parent-child couple overcoming whatever hesitation may have originally existed. While the book’s back cover claims that the text’s goal is to “reassure” children about taking a bath, the book itself is too simplistic to accomplish this goal on its own, presenting only one conflict per page and leaving it up to caregivers to help readers understand how the character’s fear, doubts, or stubbornness were allayed. Some of the strategies—such as making a hat out of bubbles to counteract fears of getting one’s hair washed—are useful for young families, while others—such as splashing water on each other to test the temperature—are unlikely to translate to real life. Furthermore, while the book alternates between mothers and fathers giving baths, the animals being bathed are all referred to using male pronouns, thereby limiting what could have been a wide array of gender diversity. For children, however, the tabs are fascinating and fun, and the colorful illustrations and simple dialogue-driven text lend themselves to an entertaining read-aloud.
When separated from its purported goals, the book is a fine addition to toddler shelves. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-2-40801-282-3
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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