A beautiful story of healing and strength.
A stuffed fox becomes broken in a storm.
Emi and her stuffed fox live and play high on a Japanese mountain under a ginkgo tree. One day, when the first ginkgo leaf turns gold, a huge storm hits. The wind and rain bring down one of the tree branches and snatch the fox up into the midst of the storm, casting it down far away. Torn and broken and with a yellow ginkgo leaf in its pocket, the fox sits alone longing for home. Soon, it is found and brought to Kiko, a young girl in a wheelchair, who cleans and mends the fox with golden thread. Over the next year, Kiko and the fox play, heal, and become happy together. When autumn comes around again, it brings golden ginkgo leaves, and Kiko must decide if she should return the fox to his home. Del Rizzo creates a beautiful story inspired by the Japanese art form of kintsugi, mending broken pottery with gold. Feelings of brokenness, being unwanted, healing, and happiness are told from the fox’s point of view. Illustrator Sato adds intricate 3-D imagery constructed from cut paper, fabrics, and other materials. The little details, like Kiko’s leg healing over the year and the kintsugi pottery in both girls’ homes, add to the charm of the story. All characters are Japanese, with some Japanese incorporated into the text.
A beautiful story of healing and strength. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77147-360-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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
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
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