Just scratches the surface of multicultural education.
Best friends Martin, Sally, Nick, Pedro, and Yulee are getting ready to celebrate their school’s heritage festival.
Every family has been asked to bring something to eat and something to share for show and tell. Martin, whose father is Indian and whose mother is Japanese, is bringing two dishes to the festival along with a traditional Japanese flute. Sally is Haida, and her ancestors are some of the original inhabitants of North America; she brings a cedar-bark basket. Pedro, who is Brazilian, decides to do a soccer demo. Nick has Scandinavian heritage, and he is going to wear a Viking helmet. (His moms are an interracial couple.) And Egyptian-born Yulee is excited to share an Egyptian vegetarian dish called koshary that she made with her grandmother. At the festival, the five friends share their dishes and their show-and-tell items with the rest of the school, as do their classmates. Alongside the narrative are questions prompting readers to reflect on their own backgrounds. While it is refreshing to see both Indigenous and multiracial characters in a picture book, the text focuses on what has been called the “food, festival, folklore, and fashion” approach to multiculturalism rather the complexities of migration and displacement that are the reality of so many children’s lives. As a result, the text reads more as a series of cultural snapshots than a coherent narrative about diversity. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 55.6% of actual size.)
Just scratches the surface of multicultural education. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0497-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tale of mutual adoration that hits a sweet note.
Little Honey Bunny Funnybunny loves baseball almost as much as she loves her big brother P.J.—though it’s a close-run thing.
Readers familiar with the pranks P.J. plays on his younger sibling in older episodes of the series (most illustrated by Roger Bollen) will be amused—and perhaps a little confused—to see him in the role of perfect big brother after meeting his swaddled little sister for the first time in mama’s lap. But here, along with being a constant companion and “always happy to see her,” he cements his heroic status in her eyes by hitting a home run for his baseball team and then patiently teaching her how to play T-ball. After carefully coaching her and leading her through warm-up exercises, he even sits in the stands, loudly cheering her on as she scores the winning run in her own very first game. “‘You are the best brother a bunny could ever have!’” she burbles. This tale’s a tad blander compared with others centered on P.J. and his sister, but it’s undeniably cheery, with text well structured for burgeoning readers. The all-smiles animal cast in Bowers’ cartoon art features a large and diversely hued family of bunnies sporting immense floppy ears as well as a multispecies crowd of furry onlookers equally varied of color, with one spectator in a wheelchair.
A tale of mutual adoration that hits a sweet note. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9798217032464
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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