Look here for uncomplicated validation.
Chef and TV personality Hussain and illustrator Bailey team up once more, this time for the story of a boy and his parakeet.
A sky-blue bird named Rayf sits on the shoulder of an unnamed brown-skinned boy who narrates. They go everywhere together: the supermarket, Granny’s house, the top of a mountain. Bailey illustrates their relatively simple world with cheery colors, and everyone has big eyes, including some inanimate objects. Despite the friendly vibes, on the first day of summer camp, the boy worries when he notices that none of the other children have birds. He hangs his coat up, concealing Rayf in the pocket: “As long as Rayf doesn’t fly or sing, I will be okay. No one will know that I am different.” The boy plays with the other children, tamping down his sadness about Rayf until it’s time to go outside. The boy dons his coat, and once all the kids are in the garden, Rayf flies free before alighting on the boy’s hand. The boy reddens, embarrassed to be different. His campmates, however, are bursting with praise and enthusiastic questions. The story ends abruptly, especially considering its leisurely start. While many kids will relate to this straightforward tale—a clear metaphor for learning to embrace one’s differences—others will be left with questions: How do we cultivate self-love if others don’t accept our differences?
Look here for uncomplicated validation. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781623716820
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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