by Ruth Forman & illustrated by Cbabi Bayoc ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2007
A good choice for reading aloud together.
Children on the summer streets of South Philadelphia make their own fun and don’t miss what they don’t have. There may not be frontyards and backyards, but they have brownstone steps, the corner store, the ice-cream man and all the street games they can play. They also have mamma, gramma, some good home cooking and lots of friends with attitude. Forman takes a poem from an earlier collection and gives it a life of its own. The text floats across the pages, appearing at the top, middle or side, sometimes curvy, sometimes straight. Bayoc’s colorful, cartoon-like illustrations are filled with fun and action and match the text perfectly. The poem is written in street slang with words spelled accordingly. Although young readers might have some difficulty with the dialect and cadence, this poem exudes so much joy that they’ll want to read it again and again.
A good choice for reading aloud together. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-89239-218-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Children's Book Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
Share your opinion of this book
More by Ruth Forman
BOOK REVIEW
by Ruth Forman ; illustrated by Talia Skyles
by Sheila Hamanaka ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1994
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
Share your opinion of this book
More by Sheila Hamanaka
BOOK REVIEW
by Sheila Hamanaka & illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka
BOOK REVIEW
by Larry La Prise & Charles P. Macak & Taftt Baker & illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka
BOOK REVIEW
by Sheila Hamanaka & illustrated by Sheila Hamanaka
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2018
For places where the first-grade shelves are particularly thin.
The traditional song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” gets a school makeover as readers follow a cheery narrator through the first 12 days of first grade.
“On the first day of first grade / I had fun right away // laughing and learning all day!” In these first two spreads, Jennings shows the child, who has brown skin and a cloud of dark-brown hair, entering the schoolyard with a diverse array of classmates and settling in. In the backgrounds, caregivers, including a woman in hijab, stand at the fence and kids hang things on hooks in the back of the room. Each new day sees the child and their friends enjoying new things, previous days’ activities repeated in the verses each time so that those listening will soon be chiming in. The child helps in the classroom, checks out books from the library, plants seeds, practices telling time and counting money, leads the line, performs in a play, shows off a picture of their pet bunny, and does activities in gym, music, and art classes. The Photoshop-and-watercolor illustrations portray adorable and engaged kids having fun while learning with friends. But while the song and topic are the same, this doesn’t come close to touching either the hysterical visuals or great rhythm of Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003).
For places where the first-grade shelves are particularly thin. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-266851-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Share your opinion of this book
More by Tish Rabe
BOOK REVIEW
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes
BOOK REVIEW
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.