An affirming story about a helpful young Traveller.
Janie helps her neighbor Mrs. Tolen by reconstructing her caravan when the older woman needs a safer living space after breaking her hip.
Janie, a light-skinned girl with reddish hair who lives with her mother and grandfather, and Mrs. Tolen, gray-haired and light-skinned, are Travellers who live in caravans. In the past, they traveled from town to town, working with metals and recycling older materials in what Janie’s grandpa calls the “rag-and-bone trade.” After visiting a can-recycling factory with her diverse class, Janie decides to rebuild Mrs. Tolen’s caravan with the help of classmates and community members. The recycling plant donates recycled metal sheets, and the community collects cans to earn necessary funds. Volunteers work under Janie’s leadership. After Mrs. Tolen finishes rehab, she moves into her new recycled “Can Caravan.” Colorful, realistic illustrations lend an upbeat tone. Perhaps it’s unrealistic for Janie to direct the initiative, but the “komli chavvie” (kind child), as Mrs. Tolen calls her, has a strong interest in creating caravans, and kids will admire her take-charge attitude and goodhearted actions. O’Neill deftly folds traditional Traveller values and vocabulary into a contemporary picture book about recycling and community action. A helpful flowchart at the end shows how cans are recycled. Romani words are defined on the copyright page. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An affirming story about a helpful young Traveller. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-78628-615-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Child's Play
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An introduction to Venus that shows the planet at her most verbally and visually vivacious.
The solar system’s hottest diva struts her stuff.
The titular character’s claim that she’s the only goddess among the planetary gods may leave partisans of “Gaea” (technically not an official name, but still) feeling a little miffed. That aside, Venus still has plenty to crow about—from having higher surface temperatures than Mercury, to sporting a day that’s longer than her year, to spinning so the sun comes up in the west. Joining McAnulty’s other solar system soliloquies with the same engaging mix of facts and attitude (“Earth has clouds. I don’t…just have clouds. I’m smothered in them!”), Venus shines up from the page. She sports a proud expression on her broad face, whether hovering with windswept golden locks over a seashell like her Botticellian counterpart or floating in space, waving to her earthly and celestial fans with stubby limbs. Closing with a review quiz and a roundup of basic statistics, this animated planetary self-portrait will give young readers more reason than ever to pay proper attention to the brightest of our non-stellar astronomical neighbors.
An introduction to Venus that shows the planet at her most verbally and visually vivacious. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781250334473
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Odd Dot
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so...
A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.
Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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