Pick up a copy or two for the toddlers and toddler-fans in your life.
A celebration of what it is to be 2!
Toddlerhood often gets a bad rap—just think of the phrase “terrible twos.” But in O’Leary and Klassen’s hands, 2 is anything but terrible. Two is active, capable, vocal, compassionate, thoughtful, creative, determined…whole. Two is human in this picture book, and the narration’s direct address provides affirmation of toddlers’ human complexity and dignity from one spread to the next: “Now that you are two, you are learning about yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You are forming memories and making plans.” Accompanying illustrations depict a diverse range of children, different ones on each spread, which nicely avoids having any one depiction of toddlerhood falsely stand in as universal, who engage in activities that echo or expand on the text. Playful industriousness gives way to contemplative calm or mischievous determination, embodied in the faces and postures of the children. The dialectic between art and text offers some surprises, too, as when the line “Wherever you go your baby goes, too” is paired with a picture of a child in the bathtub—not with a baby doll but with a sudsy toy T. Rex.
Pick up a copy or two for the toddlers and toddler-fans in your life. (Picture book. 2)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77147-073-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visually striking and narratively rewarding, both beautifully unique and fully familiar.
A child faces her fears to cross a bridge and reach a festival.
Karina is caught up in the bustle of festival preparations, eager to help deliver a banig, a Filipino mat woven out of leaves and reeds, to the local festival, where her group will compete with others for the honor of longest mat. But when she realizes they have to cross a bridge, she stops cold. She’s scared of heights, and the bridge is unstable; it’s a long way down and a wobbly way across. But Karina is determined to bring her family’s contribution to the festival and, with the help of her older cousin, unfurls the mat to cover the slats and make the crossing far less scary. There’s an air of fable about this story—a clear task to complete, a nervous but determined hero, and a great challenge to overcome—and the thrill of Karina conquering her fear is exuberantly relayed. Bongco-Philipzig’s dynamic approach to storytelling alternates effortlessly between expository narration and speech-bubble dialogue that incorporates Tagalog words and phrases. Parrocha’s illustrations are entrancing and playful, using shifting angular perspectives to emphasize Karina’s fear of heights and kinetic, colorful page spreads to capture the thrill of unrolling and admiring the simultaneously artistic and utilitarian handcrafted banigs. Most characters have brown hair and pale skin.
Visually striking and narratively rewarding, both beautifully unique and fully familiar. (background information, glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2026
ISBN: 9781771476744
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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