A gentle reminder of the importance of the dark.
When nighttime never arrives, a young girl sets out to find out why in Paruzel-Gibson’s picture book.
Each evening, young Nina takes a book to bed, while Night, personified as a human with pale blue skin, sits nearby to listen to the girl read aloud. (Nina is shown with pale skin; other characters have an array of skin tones.) But one day, Night doesn’t show up: The sun shines on, while the townspeople use the extra daylight to run errands and play outside. “Nina missed starlight, dancing fireflies, and sweet dreams,” so she packs a bag and sets out to find Night. She finds her in a cave in the woods, feeling sad and believing that no one would miss darkness, but Nina reminds her, “The world needs rest.” Nina coaxes Night from the cave and, at last, the sun sets, sending everyone—including Nina—to sleep. For young readers afraid of nighttime, this will be an ideal book: There’s no moralizing or admonishment, just a calming story showing that everyone—kids, adults, plants, and animals—all need to rest, and that darkness is kind, not scary. This message is skillfully bolstered by Lafrentz’s ink-and-watercolor illustrations, which deftly use color to show the oppressive ocher of endless sun and the calming blue of night.
A gentle reminder of the importance of the dark.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781998129997
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pownal Street Press
Review Posted Online: today
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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