A realistic, poignant, and affirming family portrait.
Mama loves her child—even on “her bluest days.”
The young narrator lives in a house by the sea with a cat and with Baba and Mama—a devoted parent who lives with bipolar disorder. Like the moon, Mama is a guiding light in the narrator’s life, but she also waxes and wanes, shifting from depression to mania. At times, she struggles to get out of bed; she even misses the protagonist’s school concert. Not much of Mama’s mania is depicted, but at one point, she must spend time in the hospital. Luckily, steadfast Baba is there to keep the youngster grounded. Grigni’s rhyming text is gentle and honest, validating the child’s feelings of abandonment, helplessness, and anger while also making it clear that Mama’s actions aren’t the result of a moral failing or a lack of love. Inspired metaphors help drive home the book’s messages, such as “a heavy fog that hangs over her head,” with images of the child floating through the sky, encircled by a waxing moon. Tempering the difficult subject matter, the artwork has a graphic novel feel, with characters speaking in speech bubbles. In keeping with the lunar theme, hues of purple and blue dominate the pages. Mama is light-skinned, while Baba and the narrator are brown-skinned; some may read Mama and Baba as a queer couple.
A realistic, poignant, and affirming family portrait. (resources, author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781250824295
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Earnest and well meaning but not quite a touchdown.
In Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Hurts’ motivational picture book, a youngster rebounds from disappointment.
As Jalen heads off on his first day of school, he daydreams about joining the football team, but his friend Trey soon breaks the bad news. The garden club needed more space for vegetables, so the football field was used for planting. There will be no football this year. Jalen is despondent, but his teachers Mrs. Lee and Mr. Barry and bodega owner Mr. Muhammad offer guidance that spurs him and his friends into positive action. They work to flip a nearby empty lot into a football field, with Jalen echoing his mentors’ adages. Once the field is complete, Jalen feels a swell of pride in his and his friends’ work. While the idea of kids working together to effect change is a laudable one, the bland, wordy storytelling won’t inspire young people or hold their attention. Tired, cliched inspirational comments peppered throughout often slow down the narrative, and many adult readers will find the premise—a school dropping a high-interest sports program in favor of a community garden—wildly unrealistic. Though the illustrations are colorful, with a Disney Junior charm, strange stylistic choices, such as signs with odd combinations of scribbles instead of letters, give them an unpolished look. Like Hurts, Jalen is Black; his community is diverse.
Earnest and well meaning but not quite a touchdown. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9798217040308
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A tale of mutual adoration that hits a sweet note.
Little Honey Bunny Funnybunny loves baseball almost as much as she loves her big brother P.J.—though it’s a close-run thing.
Readers familiar with the pranks P.J. plays on his younger sibling in older episodes of the series (most illustrated by Roger Bollen) will be amused—and perhaps a little confused—to see him in the role of perfect big brother after meeting his swaddled little sister for the first time in mama’s lap. But here, along with being a constant companion and “always happy to see her,” he cements his heroic status in her eyes by hitting a home run for his baseball team and then patiently teaching her how to play T-ball. After carefully coaching her and leading her through warm-up exercises, he even sits in the stands, loudly cheering her on as she scores the winning run in her own very first game. “‘You are the best brother a bunny could ever have!’” she burbles. This tale’s a tad blander compared with others centered on P.J. and his sister, but it’s undeniably cheery, with text well structured for burgeoning readers. The all-smiles animal cast in Bowers’ cartoon art features a large and diversely hued family of bunnies sporting immense floppy ears as well as a multispecies crowd of furry onlookers equally varied of color, with one spectator in a wheelchair.
A tale of mutual adoration that hits a sweet note. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9798217032464
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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