Useful guidance for young neurodivergent readers.
In this instructive picture book, kids learn strategies for getting chores done.
Few youngsters enjoy brushing their teeth or cleaning up, but for those with ADHD, it can be “borture,” an amusing portmanteau (boring and torture) coined by Squeaky McGee, a chipper squirrel with ADHD. “You’re super creative, / inventive, and fun,” says Squeaky. “Most people’s brains walk, / but yours likes to run.” And doing things that aren’t “interesting, challenging, or new”? Pure borture. Squeaky supportively guides children through a series of hacks, among them turning dull tasks into a game, working in short bursts, and making to-do lists. With its awkward meter and rhyme and lack of narrative arc, this book isn’t one most kids will likely pick up more than once, but the advice is sound; think of this one as self-help for the elementary school set, to be read once or twice and referred to when strategies are needed. Squeaky refers to the acronym S.P.I.C.E. (Stakes, Passion, Innovation, Competition, Engagement), which is further explained in the backmatter. There, readers will also find a note from Penn Holderness (who has ADHD), more tips for motivating youngsters, and advice for parents. Depicting racially diverse kids, Vogel’s illustrations are fun, colorful, and at times funny (like a montage of bored children staring lifelessly while attempting to complete their chores).
Useful guidance for young neurodivergent readers. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780316597685
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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