An ideal tale for anxious youngsters.
A cat learns to overcome his anxiety in this picture book by occupational therapist Baskett.
Beauregard, a gray-and-orange feline, is enjoying a nap when he hears a young neighbor splashing happily in a puddle. He wants to join in, but when he reaches the water, he’s stricken with fear: “His tummy felt fluttery and icky. His breathing turned into short, shaky gasps.” The boy encourages him, but Beauregard is frozen with anxiety. He recalls what his mama taught him to overcome it: Note three things you can see, three things you can hear, and gently move three parts of your body; then take a deep breath, hold it a moment, let it out slowly, and move on. He does each action, then leaps into the water: “Beauregard’s fear had faded, and joy filled his heart.” At the end, the steps to “Pause and Be Brave” are presented as a simple rhyme with suggested motions (such as “Shade your eyes with one hand as if looking far away”). The art is slightly unpolished but charming, and the interactions between the boy and cat are sweet. More importantly, the book is everything a helpful story should be—demonstrating with compassion how awful fear feels, then expertly offering a simple skill that anyone may use in such circumstances.
An ideal tale for anxious youngsters.Pub Date: July 22, 2025
ISBN: 9798822964532
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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