An accessible early reader for the holiday shelf.
A Thanksgiving-themed text for new readers features illustrations of a grateful child in a multiracial family.
The unnamed narrator, a child of color with brown skin and wavy, dark hair, awakens and is thankful there’s no school that day. The narrator’s happy to pitch in when Pops, an elder who uses a cane and has gray hair and lighter skin, asks for help in the kitchen. They join the child’s mother in making pies, and then they visit the child’s father at his job as a firefighter (the former has lighter skin like Pops’, the latter shares the narrator’s coloring). Throughout, the child gives thanks—expressing gratitude “that Pops lives with us” and “for what my dad and his crew do to keep us safe.” After participating in the town’s turkey-trot road race, they return home to greet diverse extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles, and Great-Gran), who join them for a shared meal, watching football on TV, and, once the weather clears up, playing football outside. With its consistent affirmations and digital art that visually echoes the text, the book is rooted in the “positive power” its series title extols. This doesn’t lead to action-packed storytelling but could spark conversations about gratitude and Thanksgiving, depicted as a modern family celebration without any reference to its history in Colonial America. Series companion I Am Kind publishes simultaneously.
An accessible early reader for the holiday shelf. (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62336-920-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Rodale Kids
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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