Warm and bright.
A lyrical ode to the children.
The speaker remains unidentified in second-person text, which addresses three children in turn as “you” while also implying child readers. Soft-focus illustrations lend specificity by placing each child in the context of family and interests. First is a child of color in a family that appears to be composed of an Asian father, White mother, Asian grandmother, and biracial younger sibling. The narrator assures the child that “You are like the sun… / rising every day / with your energy and light.” The illustrations depict the child in a bright yellow dress, singing and dancing for the family and then taking the stage before a crowd while yellow confetti falls from the sky and a white dove swoops overhead. Next is a blond, White child who is “like the moon… / sometimes full and big, / sometimes new and small.” This child is depicted as an animal lover doting on a family of kittens they find in a box and bring home to parents and two siblings, all of whom present as White. Finally, a Black-presenting child is likened to “the stars in the night sky, / lighting the way for all to see— / even on their darkest night.” This child wears aviator goggles and plays with a toy airplane as mother and father, both also Black, encourage their offspring’s interest by gazing at the sky as a family before the child takes flight.(This book was reviewed digitally.)
Warm and bright. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30937-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt.
A love song from parents to their child.
This title will seem quite similar to the many others about parents’ deep love for their children. The text is wholly composed of first-person declarations of parental love, and it’s juxtaposed with illustrations of the child with one or both parents. It’s not always clear who the “I” speaking is, and there are a few pages that instead use “we.” Most sentences begin with “I love you more” phrasing to communicate that nothing could undermine parental love: “I love you more than all the sleepless nights…and all the early, tired mornings.” The accompanying pictures depict the child as a baby with weary parents. Later spreads show the child growing up, and the phrasing shifts away from the challenges of parenting to its joys and to attempts to quantify love: “I love you more than all the blades of grass at the park…and all the soccer that we played.” Throughout, Bell’s illustrations use pastel tones and soft visual texture to depict cozy, wholesome scenes that are largely redundant of the straightforward, warm text. They feature a brown-haired family with a mother, father, and child, who all appear to be white (though the father has skin that’s a shade darker than the others’).
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0652-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A simplistic, outdated take on Diwali for young children.
It’s Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and Binny can’t wait to tell her class about her favorite holiday.
On their way through their North American suburb to school, Binny’s mother wishes her luck and reminds her to tell her class about the oil lamps that are a central part of their family’s Diwali tradition. But when Binny’s teacher, Mr. Boomer, invites her to share, Binny freezes, overcome with shyness. Taking a deep breath, she remembers her mother’s advice. The thought of the world filled with light—symbolizing the triumph of good over evil—gives Binny the strength she needs to tell her family’s Diwali story. While the book is thorough in its description of traditions like wearing new clothes, eating sweets, lighting lamps, and decorating floors and sidewalks with colored powder, the prose is clunky and clumsy, and Binny’s conflict is resolved so quickly that the story arc feels limp and uninteresting. Other elements of the text are troubling as well. Calling Binny’s new clothes an “Indian outfit,” for example, erases the fact that the kurta she wears is typical of the entire South Asian subcontinent. The use of most fireworks, which the author treats as an essential part of the holiday, is now banned in India due to concerns about pollution and child labor. Most problematically of all, the author continually treats Diwali as a Hindu holiday celebrated by “everyone,” which is untrue in India or in diaspora and which dangerously equates Hindu and Indian identity. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads reviewed at 49% of actual size.)
A simplistic, outdated take on Diwali for young children. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-36448-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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