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OUT, OUT AWAY FROM HERE

Name: OUT, OUT AWAY FROM HERE
Author: Rachel Woodward
ISBN: 978-1-911171-33-1

by Rachel Woodward ; illustrated by Sang Miao ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 3, 2018

Honors the emotional lives of many—but not all—children.

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When a child is overcome by negative emotions, solace can be found in the imagination.

The narrator confides to readers, “Some days I feel smiling-ear-to-ear GLAD. / And some days I feel MAD SAD SMILING-EAR-TO-EAR GLAD. // … // But on those MAD SAD NOISY days… // I like to go OUT, OUT, AWAY FROM HERE… / …into the wild of my imagination.” Miao uses bright watercolors to paint a narrative subtext into the pictures. There is a new baby sibling in the home, along with parents who are under stress and sometimes argue. In one striking double-page spread, the parents’ angry, shouting dark silhouettes are in the foreground, framing a worried-looking baby and the narrator, who flees. The scenes in the child’s imaginary world are bright, busy, and fantastical, full of surreal images in sometimes-dizzying compositions. They provide enough space that when the child returns, the home is calm, and smiling parents have a warm supper waiting. The family presents white and middle-class. The story begs comparison to Molly Bang’s When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry… (1999), but this child is escaping the heightened emotions of others rather than managing their own. Readers with functional families that experience strife may find mirrors here, but those in toxic environments are likely to have more complex reactions.

Honors the emotional lives of many—but not all—children. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: April 3, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-911171-33-1

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Flying Eye Books

Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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CLAYMATES

by Dev Petty ; illustrated by Lauren Eldridge ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2017

The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...

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Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.

A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.

The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)