A love song to libraries and kids who find joy in reading.
A young girl solves the problem of her school library’s checkout limit in Sharp’s picture-book ode to book-lending.
Zoey is enchanted by books; she wants her Nana to read them to her from the beginning to the end. As she learns to read herself, it becomes her favorite activity. She writes her own stories in sidewalk chalk and in scrapbooks. At school, she’s delighted to see there’s a library, but wait—“the school had a limit. / WHAT???? ONE BOOK PER VISIT!” Montgomery’s soft-edged illustrations capture Zoey’s dismay perfectly: How can a child with insatiable curiosity ever read all of the books she wants if she can only take out one at a time? The solution: Nana takes Zoey to the public library, and soon after, Zoey takes all her friends. When they all decide to bring books for Zoey’s show-and-tell, Zoey’s able to share her love of the library with her class. The story comes full circle, imagining Zoey as a grandmother reading to her own story-loving grandchild. Sharp’s story is sweet and full of library love. In the text’s verses, the scansion and rhyme schemes vary—rhymes sometimes occur in the middle of a couplet, rather than at the end, making it easy to lose the rhythm in a read-aloud. But the story shines through, elevated by Montgomery’s pictures of blond-haired Zoey’s classroom and her diverse group of friends.
A love song to libraries and kids who find joy in reading.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9781779442321
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Miriam Laundry Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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