A moving celebration of cultural and personal resilience.
A child’s world is upended during India’s Partition.
Veena loves her family’s kitchen, a place “full of warmth and words.” She especially adores the buttery, round rotis that the women in her family make using local grains. She practices, and although her first attempts are misshapen, she’s soon able to make perfectly round rotis. Everything changes when India wins its independence from Great Britain and is subsequently partitioned into two countries—India and Pakistan—divided along religious lines. While many believe nothing will change, her father presciently declares, “India will no longer be the same.” Sure enough, Veena and her family are forced to flee their home in the middle of the night. They end up in a refugee camp, where they eat strangely hard, red rotis. Veena heads to the camp kitchen, where she finds a sense of belonging as she makes rotis. When Veena and her family finally relocate to Delhi, India, she brings her rotis and the memories they hold into a brand-new kitchen and life. Inspired by the author’s grandparents’ experiences, this picture book provides a tender, optimistic look at one of the subcontinent’s darkest chapters. Though the book includes a map, readers may initially find it unclear whether Veena and her family are crossing into Pakistan or India. Still, the tale has a strong, specific emotional core, enhanced by gentle earth-toned images that leaven the often difficult subject matter.
A moving celebration of cultural and personal resilience. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781525307355
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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