A lush and lovely celebration of urban nature’s gifts.
A banyan tree protects an apartment building and its inhabitants.
This artistically emphatic story opens with a sweep of the Hong Kong harbor skyline. A bird swoops by with a seed in its mouth, dropping it “into a crack in a green tong lau.” The tong lau, a term that may be unfamiliar to some readers, is revealed to be a somewhat shabby tenement buzzing with life, from a ground-level shop selling roast goose to kids playing on the rooftop amid potted plants and laundry lines. As the seed sprouts into a banyan tree, it finds its place in this sweet symphony. The tree’s roots crawl down the walls into the ground below, birds and insects make homes in its branches, and children swing from its aerial roots. The adults criticize the arboreal interloper—it blocks sunlight! It’s scaring pets!—but, in a most dramatic fashion, the community soon discovers the benefits of welcoming green into the concrete jungle. Sy’s text, tucked between leafy branches and crowded rooms, highlights tangible sensations: the smells and tastes, muggy summer weather, and daily routines of urban existence. Jain’s watercolors unfurl, vinelike, so palpable that one can discern the texture of the paper they were painted on. Immersing themselves in this sensory experience, readers will easily appreciate the tong lau as an interdependent microcosm unto itself.
A lush and lovely celebration of urban nature’s gifts. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9780593858448
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kokila
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
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
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
