A soothing, uncomplicated meditation on nature’s cycles and letting go.
A child processes loss and embraces renewal when a beloved backyard oak must be removed.
The tree has been a constant companion—whispering in spring, whooshing in summer, cackling and crunching in fall, and whistling in winter. But when the old oak begins creaking ominously, an arborist determines, “It’s time.” The young narrator’s parents nod knowingly, but the little one hasn’t prepared for this goodbye. As a crane dismantles the tree branch by branch, the family presses leaves to preserve memories. After, the yard feels eerily quiet—until weeds sprout between the woodchips “like the start of a new idea.” The family plants a butterfly garden and a sapling, with the protagonist promising to watch over the young tree as the old one once watched over the child. Kurpiel’s narrative is spare and straightforward, leaning heavily on sensory language to convey the tree’s seasonal transformations. The family is rendered warmly in mixed-media illustrations—pencil sketches layered with digital dry media and watercolor brushes. Soft, rounded shapes create a comforting visual rhythm, while warm earth tones and cool blues establish emotional resonance. A standout spread bathes the empty yard in deep blue evening light, fireflies glowing against the ghostly outline of what once was. The compositions showing the tree’s gradual reduction use swirling circles effectively to represent time’s passage. The protagonist is pale-skinned and dark-haired; the family appears to be mixed race.
A soothing, uncomplicated meditation on nature’s cycles and letting go. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9780593697689
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts.
In this latest slice in the Food Group series, Humble Pie learns to stand up to a busy friend who’s taking advantage of his pal’s hard work on the sidelines.
Jake the Cake and Humble Pie are good friends. Where Pie is content to toil in the background, Jake happily shines in the spotlight. Alert readers will notice that Pie’s always right there, too, getting A-pluses and skiing expertly just behind—while also doing the support work that keeps every school and social project humming. “Fact: Nobody notices pie when there’s cake nearby!” When the two friends pair up for a science project, things begin well. But when the overcommitted Jake makes excuse after excuse, showing up late or not at all, a panicked Pie realizes that they won’t finish in time. When Jake finally shows up on the night before the project’s due, Pie courageously confronts him. “And for once, I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.” The friends talk it out and collaborate through the night for the project’s successful presentation in class the next day. John and Oswald’s winning recipe—plentiful puns and delightful visual jokes—has yielded another treat here. The narration does skew didactic as it wraps up: “There’s nothing wrong with having a tough conversation, asking for help, or making sure you’re being treated fairly.” But it’s all good fun, in service of some gentle lessons about social-emotional development.
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780063469730
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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