Yes, Fang, you’ll be fine with your fishy friend by your side.
A shark attends Mini Minnows Elementary with his best bud, a minnow, but his day is not a smooth one in this return for Nugget & Fang (2013).
Nugget and Fang are best friends, a relationship facilitated by the shark’s vegetarian diet. Though most other sea creatures panic and flee the extremely toothy Fang, the mini minnows are an exception; in their previous outing, Fang saved them from being a menu item. To thank him, they invite Fang to school. The shark is excited, but anxiety hits on the first day, and the giant shark is plagued by questions and what-ifs that his tiny friend just takes in stride. Nugget’s mantra is “You’ll be fine.” But Fang is decidedly not fine: He struggles in every subject and suffers through many mishaps. The final straw lands at the end of the day, when all the fish are expected to share something with the class. After flailing and flopping his way through the school day, Fang doesn’t want to present. When it’s finally his turn, his anxiety has his fins and his tongue tied in knots. But then he spies Nugget, his best friend, and he has no doubt about what is most important for everyone to know. The Photoshop illustrations are bright and colorful. Slack deftly portrays Fang’s every emotion, his toothy frowns and worried eyebrows complementing his slumped body and dorsal fin. Readers will no doubt feel empathetic.
Yes, Fang, you’ll be fine with your fishy friend by your side. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-54826-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
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