bookshelf

TOESY TOES

Name: TOESY TOES
Author: Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1342-7

by Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 2018

Simple, age-appropriate, and thoughtfully diverse. Exactly what we want in a board book.

bookshelf

A charming collection of 12 baby pictures with toes as the unifying principle.

Pictures on the right-hand pages show a variety of unique (mostly) diaper-clad toddlers engaged in recognizable baby activities. Each left-hand page uses just five playful words to describe what’s happening. Each line begins with the child’s name and ends with “toes.” Judging by naming convention, the pictures are evenly split between female and male. The final three photos, without names, are appropriately androgynous. The well-chosen pictures are a mix of stock photos and family snapshots. The cover picture is of a baby with light brown skin and tight brown curls. A pale-skinned tot named Gabby, naked but modestly posed, is totally focused on rinsing her feet at a spigot. Abha is brown-skinned. Aleen’s lifted high by a woman in a hijab. “Oliver has piggledy-wiggledy toes” shows an older child playfully nibbling on Oliver’s feet. A few pages later Izzy is obviously nursing. These babies are winsome but they are not airbrushed, making them all the more delightful. Liam has a red rash around his smiling mouth. Toddlers will easily recognize themselves, and children who have outgrown diapers will enjoy remembering what it was like when they (or their siblings) were babies.

Simple, age-appropriate, and thoughtfully diverse. Exactly what we want in a board book. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)

Pub Date: April 10, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4598-1342-7

Page Count: 26

Publisher: Orca

Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

bookshelf

LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

bookshelf

How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

bookshelf

ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

bookshelf

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)