While the use of “mindful” in the title will grab the attention of many, readers seeking tools to truly explore mindfulness...
A little girl breathes her “magic breath,” transforming worry and sadness into serenity.
Learning to breathe deeply to find calm can be a wonderful coping tool for children—but not as instructed here. The book states that breathing deeply can help us to “push some of those thoughts away” when we are nervous or sad, a technique that can be augmented by bringing to mind happy thoughts to replace the sad ones. This strategy may be effective, but it is not (as the subtitle states) “mindful,” as true mindfulness practice encourages noticing everything as it is, even the unpleasant parts of life. The advice also seems to assume an audience of relative privilege. For vulnerable children, strategies of intentionally replacing unpleasant thoughts with more favorable ones can, far from bringing peace, actually reinforce destructive messages. Children experiencing abuse or discrimination often receive messages from adults in power that they deserve what is happening to them, so telling such children to simply breathe away their anxiety masks the very real issue underlying the symptom. Even leaving that concern aside, the book has very little to engage young readers. It offers no characters or plot, and most of the illustrations are simple mishmashes of color used to convey happy or sad breaths.
While the use of “mindful” in the title will grab the attention of many, readers seeking tools to truly explore mindfulness with children are better served elsewhere. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-268776-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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