Sweet and honest.
An assimilated child of the Indian diaspora finds herself culturally challenged when her grandmother visits her family in North America.
Maya misses her grandmother and wishes she would visit rather than sending her postcards from many miles away. A few weeks later, Maya has a special surprise waiting for her: Grandma has come to visit! But Maya’s excitement doesn’t last long. Maya prefers cupcakes to her grandmother’s homemade sweets; when her grandmother visits her school, she is embarrassed by Grandma’s sari and her loud voice; most of all, Maya does not like it when her Grandma calls her “Mayalakshmi.” The narrative comes to a head when Maya loses sight of her family during a trip to an amusement park, and she and her grandmother find each other in more ways than one. Balasubramaniam’s honest first-person text and Leng’s soft line-and-color illustrations—which deftly and sympathetically convey the intensity of Maya’s feelings—explore familial love and the intricacies of cross-cultural and intergenerational relationships between very young children and their grandparents. Maya and her family are Indian and celebrate Holi; they live in a vibrant, diverse urban setting. The use of English names (Grandma, Mother, Father) may strike children like Maya as odd, but it is inclusive of a broad range of children with South Asian heritage.
Sweet and honest. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77306-018-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads.
Emma deals with jitters before playing the guitar in the school talent show.
Pop musician Kevin Jonas and his wife, Danielle, put performance at the center of their picture-book debut. When Emma is intimidated by her very talented friends, the encouragement of her younger sister, Bella, and the support of her family help her to shine her own light. The story is straightforward and the moral familiar: Draw strength from your family and within to overcome your fears. Employing the performance-anxiety trope that’s been written many times over, the book plods along predictably—there’s nothing really new or surprising here. Dawson’s full-color digital illustrations center a White-presenting family along with Emma’s three friends of color: Jamila has tanned skin and wears a hijab; Wendy has dark brown skin and Afro puffs; and Luis has medium brown skin. Emma’s expressive eyes and face are the real draw of the artwork—from worry to embarrassment to joy, it’s clear what she’s feeling. A standout double-page spread depicts Emma’s talent show performance, with a rainbow swirl of music erupting from an amp and Emma rocking a glam outfit and electric guitar. Overall, the book reads pretty plainly, buoyed largely by the artwork. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35207-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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