A hopeful, universal story about the power of friendship to dramatically improve the quality of everyday life.
A picture book set in China shows that loneliness can be overcome.
Liling, a young Chinese girl, and her parents have moved from the country to a busy city. Her mother and father work in a sewing factory and a can-making factory respectively. Without friends or school, Liling is lonely. The artwork’s grayscale palette reflects that bleak reality. Even the marketplace, with its “tables of rainbow fabrics,” is painted in muted blues and grays. The only bright spots in the illustrations are Liling’s red coat and, eventually, the bright yellow coat of Qiqi, a smiling girl whom Liling must devise ingenious methods to befriend since they live in different buildings. The motif of a Chinese dragon, a metaphor for courage, weaves in and out of the artwork and text. The hand-drawn pictures and handwritten notes that the two girls send each other are sparks of joy in Liling’s otherwise dull life. The Chinese hukou system that traps Liling and her family in poverty is explained in a brief glossary and in the pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book, but it is not the focus of the story. An author’s note and a five-item resource list at the back provide details for parents and teachers seeking more information. Inspired by her visit to Shanghai to adopt a child, Evans’ pencil and watercolor paintings of Chinese characters and scenes avoid insensitive stereotypes and respect Chinese culture. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A hopeful, universal story about the power of friendship to dramatically improve the quality of everyday life. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18192-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
Sure to have little ones giggling.
Jacques is a hedgehog with a big secret: “I wear real, bona fide underwear.”
Our narrator received a mysterious package one day; an illustration shows a pair of underwear tied to a balloon with a note “from the Universe” floating down into Jacques’ burrow. Hedgehogs don’t wear underwear, however. Will Jacques be shunned? Jacques worries but comes to a decision: “I have to wear them. When I do I feel special.” Determined, Jacques, who’s been invited to a party, makes a dramatic entrance, with undies in hand. Jacques’ declaration (“I WEAR UNDERWEAR”) is met with remarks of dismay, before another hedgehog opens up about similar fears and shows off a pair of cowboy boots. More hedgehogs introduce themselves with their own confessions. The story ends with Jacques unveiling a painting of the underwear in a gallery filled with hedgehogs wearing all sorts of attire. Though the book is simple in plot, characters, and setting, it wins in its balance of bathroom humor, dramatic storytelling, and celebrations of individual expression. French words are peppered throughout, adding to the fun without detracting from the story for those unfamiliar with the language. The cartoonish illustrations brim with fun; Valdez relies heavily on geometric shapes (triangle noses for the hedgehogs; huge circles for their eyes). Details such as speech bubbles and recurring turtle and snake characters contribute to the outlandish humor.
Sure to have little ones giggling. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781250814388
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
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
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