by P. Anastasia ; illustrated by Zoe Saunders ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 2022
A whimsical equine tale that emphasizes courage, exploration, and adventure.
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A horse becomes bolder and colorful when trying new things in Anastasia and Saunders’ rhyming picture book.
After a narrator implores a “brand new” white horse to “follow your heart,” the creature searches for adventures. The horse befriends a white mouse, and each time the two embark on a new endeavor, a colorful splotch manifests on their fur. When they’re unsure how to evade a tall wall, they don’t “give up hope”; instead the horse magically grow wings. The horse soars over the wall toward “the moon, the stars, and the sun.” The mouse doesn’t join because of a fear of heights, but the book reassures children that it’s OK sometimes to be afraid. Now multicolored, the horse keeps exploring the world and encourages a small white horse “lost in the darkness, alone without light.” The colorful horse explains: “You’ll soon have your very own spot of new, too.” Through its whimsical protagonist, the book shows how courage and connecting with others fosters growth, though when the horse and mouse bravely try berries on a tree, it doesn’t warn that some berries can be toxic. Anastasia’s spirited rhymes (“glisten and gleam…Sparkle and beam,” etc.) are engaging, and Saunders’ softly focused digital illustrations of a sweet-looking horse and mouse may encourage children to get out their markers or crayons and start filling in a page to color at the end.
A whimsical equine tale that emphasizes courage, exploration, and adventure.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-952425-03-5
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Jackal Moon Press
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by P. Anastasia illustrated by Zoe Saunders
by Deborah Zemke ; illustrated by Deborah Zemke ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 2019
A funny and timely primer for budding activists.
Problems are afoot at Emily Dickinson Elementary School, and it’s up to Bea Garcia to gather the troops and fight.
Bea Garcia and her best friend, Judith Einstein, sit every day under the 250-year-old oak tree in their schoolyard and imagine a face in its trunk. They name it “Emily” after their favorite American poet. Bea loves to draw both real and imagined pictures of their favorite place—the squirrels in the tree, the branches that reach for the sky, the view from the canopy even though she’s never climbed that high. Until the day a problem boy does climb that high, pelting the kids with acorns and then getting stuck. Bert causes such a scene that the school board declares Emily a nuisance and decides to chop it down. Bea and Einstein rally their friends with environmental facts, poetry, and artwork to try to convince the adults in their lives to change their minds. Bea must enlist Bert if she wants her plan to succeed. Can she use her imagination and Bert’s love of monsters to get him in line? In Bea’s fourth outing, Zemke gently encourages her protagonist to grow from an artist into an activist. Her energy and passion spill from both her narration and her frequent cartoons, which humorously extend the text. Spanish-speaking Bea’s Latinx, Einstein and Bert present white, and their classmates are diverse.
A funny and timely primer for budding activists. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 6-9)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2941-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
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by Robin Newman ; illustrated by Deborah Zemke
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by Ian Lendler ; illustrated by Deborah Zemke
BOOK REVIEW
by Deborah Zemke ; illustrated by Deborah Zemke
by Peter H. Reynolds & illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2003
Driven by the observation that most children lose their enthusiasm for making art as they get older, Reynolds prods a reluctant child into an eye-opening whirl of creativity. Asserting that she’s no artist, Vashti angrily responds to a teacher’s mild suggestion by dashing a small mark onto a big sheet of paper, then signing it. Seeing that sheet in a frame the next day, she mutters, “Hmmph! I can make a better dot than THAT!”—and proceeds to fill sheet after sheet with glorious arrays of splotches and blotches. In his own freely drawn pictures, Reynolds sets off Vashti’s colorful creations by hanging them, in the subsequent art show, in front of human figures defined by neutral-toned washes. And Vashti passes on her new-found insight at the end, inviting a young admirer who ruefully claims that he can’t draw a straight line to make a squiggle and sign it. This isn’t going to create interest where there is none, but it may speak to formerly artistic young readers who are selling their own abilities short. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7636-1961-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2003
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by Marc Colagiovanni ; illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
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by Peter H. Reynolds & Henry Rocket Reynolds ; illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
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by Susan Verde ; illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
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