Quantity alone qualifies this as compulsive and repeated reading, but there’s a delightfully mirthful creativity at work as...
Close your eyes and dream yourself into whatever you’d like to be!
A possibly Asian boy, a Caucasian girl and a bright white mouse challenge readers on the title page: “Take a look inside this book, and decide what you’d like to be.” Each two-page spread is a riot of bright pictures triggered by a single suggestion. “Can you imagine being BIG?” shows the boy towering over an airplane and making a big swimming pool look like a bathtub, while the girl blows on the lava coming out of a volcano and holds an elephant like it’s a stuffed toy. “Would you like to travel through time?” takes them—and readers—to the 1960s, the time of the Vikings, ancient Egypt and many other elsewheres. “Imagine being an animal, living in the wild” offers a total of 50 options, each in a square portrait. “Imagine flying in the sky, or living in the sea” horizontally divides the two pages, each half ridiculously crowded (in the sky: dirigible, fairy, superhero, helicopter, winged pig and more; in the sea: Neptune, manatee, tortoise, treasure, mermaid, etc.). Even the inside cover is loaded with suggestions, in the form of gerunds: “growing, flying, sleeping, sneezing...” all the way to “dreaming”—nearly 150 in all.
Quantity alone qualifies this as compulsive and repeated reading, but there’s a delightfully mirthful creativity at work as well. Good fun for a broad range of ages. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61067-343-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning.
Children realize their dreams one step at a time in this story about growth mindset.
A child crashes and damages a new bicycle on a dark, rainy day. Attempting a wheelie, the novice cyclist falls onto the sidewalk, grimacing, and, having internalized this setback as failure, vows to never ride again but to “walk…forever.” Then the unnamed protagonist happens upon a glowing orb in the forest, a “thought rearranger-er”—a luminous pink fairy called the Magical Yet. This Yet reminds the child of past accomplishments and encourages perseverance. The second-person rhyming couplets remind readers that mistakes are part of learning and that with patience and effort, children can achieve. Readers see the protagonist learn to ride the bike before a flash-forward shows the child as a capable college graduate confidently designing a sleek new bike. This book shines with diversity: racial, ethnic, ability, and gender. The gender-indeterminate protagonist has light brown skin and exuberant curly locks; Amid the bustling secondary cast, one child uses a prosthesis, and another wears hijab. At no point in the text is the Yet defined as a metaphor for a growth mindset; adults reading with younger children will likely need to clarify this abstract lesson. The artwork is powerful and detailed—pay special attention to the endpapers that progress to show the Yet at work.
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-02562-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
