A sensitively told story of a child grappling with her family’s pregnancy loss.
A young girl copes with the loss of a baby sister who passes away in utero.
Raya’s mother is having a baby, and Raya can’t wait to meet her new little sister, Nura (Arabic for “beautiful light”). Although she loves her brother, Samir, Raya is excited at the idea of having a sister—she can’t wait for the two of them to play dress-up and watch cartoons together and to give her sister piggyback rides. Dreaming about the future, Raya delights in imagining her future sister’s love of chocolate ice cream and dolphins. Everything changes when her parents return home after a doctor’s appointment with the news that “Nura won’t be coming home.” The news plunges Raya into grief, and she wonders if her love for Nura is now “trapped inside” her heart. When Raya’s father gently counsels her to spread all her love, she realizes that she doesn’t have to mourn her sister all alone, and she opens up to her parents, her school counselor, and other children who have experienced loss. This tender, thoughtful story is a much-needed tool for discussing pregnancy loss with young children. The smudgy illustrations blur in and out of focus, perfectly reflecting the foggy confusion that Raya feels. Raya and her family are brown-skinned and cued as being of Arab descent; given the relative lack of stories about miscarriage that center characters of color, this is a needed and important title. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A sensitively told story of a child grappling with her family’s pregnancy loss. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9781665901567
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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