Not exactly deep waters, but the message is delivered with tentacle-in-cheek buoyancy.
A jellyfish talks through identity issues with help from an undersea support group.
Addressing a diverse and understandably sympathetic group of sea stars (later joined by a sea horse), Edgar delivers an indignant monologue on how a jellyfish is nothing like a “fish,” lacking bones, scales, and gills. Moreover (as Edgar rightly points out), a jellyfish looks more like a white plastic shopping bag than the colorful marine life that otherwise populates Raymundo’s seascapes. Not only do other denizens of the deep like narwhals and hammerhead sharks have fancy or at least logical names, but having stinging tentacles rather than fins makes it hard to play or even keep up with fishy friends. It would be unfair to accuse Edgar of “overthinking” the issue too, because like all jellyfish, Edgar doesn’t have a brain either. The extended rant comes to a sudden end, though, with the discovery that a jellyfish is really good at one thing—floating—and the penny drops and Edgar’s anthropomorphic features light up: “No matter WHAT I’m called… / I am still ME!” Edgar concludes by congratulating the likewise-smiling invertebrate audience for making “someone feel like… / a STAR!”
Not exactly deep waters, but the message is delivered with tentacle-in-cheek buoyancy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55459-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
A full-hearted valentine.
A soaring panegyric to elementary school as a communal place to learn and grow.
“This is a kid,” Schu begins. “This is a kid in a class. This is a class in a hall….” If that class—possibly second graders, though they could be a year to either side of that—numbers only about a dozen in Jamison’s bright paintings, it makes up for that in diversity, with shiny faces of variously brown or olive complexion well outnumbering paler ones; one child using a wheelchair; and at least two who appear to be Asian. (The adult staff is likewise racially diverse.) The children are individualized in the art, but the author’s narrative is addressed more to an older set of readers as it runs almost entirely to collective nouns and abstract concepts: “We share. We help. / This is a community, growing.” Younger audiences will zero in on the pictures, which depict easily recognizable scenes of both individual and collective learning and play, with adults and classmates always on hand to help out or join in. Signs of conflict are unrealistically absent, but an occasional downcast look does add a bit of nuance to the general air of eager positivity on display. A sad face at an apartment window with a comment that “[s]ometimes something happens, and we can’t all be together” can be interpreted as an oblique reference to pandemic closings, but the central message here is that school is a physical space, not a virtual one, where learning and community happen. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A full-hearted valentine. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0458-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
This distinctly gentle, earnest protagonist’s quiet triumphs still resonate.
A little bird yearns for more.
Last seen in Lonely Bird (2023), the titular character—an avian equivalent of a stick figure—resembles nothing so much as a cut-paper drawing living in a world of thick, realistic oil paints. Little wonder that she can’t figure out where she fits in. Perhaps the sky? But the real birds that can fly have wings that seem entirely different from her own. With pencil-sketched dreams of flight dancing in her head, she sets off to research the many ways of taking to the skies. Drawings and experiments lead to a series of tests. Lonely Bird builds a glider, tweaking her designs after a precipitous crash before finally attaining a bit of success. Alas, a downdraft causes her to crash in a spiderweb in a tree, her home below appearing comparatively distant. With her plane now crushed, how will she return? This book contains the very rare instance of a realistic-looking spider proving to be a capable friend and ally at a time of need. Lonely Bird’s final conclusion that “I know exactly where I belong” is heartening, though by no means clear. Her declaration may lead to some thoughtful discussions with young readers about why she feels the way she does. The children who reside in her home present white.
This distinctly gentle, earnest protagonist’s quiet triumphs still resonate. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781536226195
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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