A serviceable tale of good bathroom habits.
Harvey's rhyming picture book looks at what happens when a kid simply refuses to poop.
Siblings Kate and Reese are having fun, but when a certain smell wafts from Kate’s direction, Reese asks if she needs a bathroom break. “I’m not pooping!” Kate shouts, insisting she just wants to play. Mom suggests that a bathroom visit would be a good choice, but Kate says no. (All characters are portrayed with pale skin.) Even when Mom says the toilet is where poop can play, Kate refuses—until everyone hears a cry from inside Kate’s body: “I’m stuck in this bum! I’m trapped in here and having no fun.” After she uses the toilet, the poop thanks Kate for its freedom and waves as it’s flushed away. Kate washes her hands, vowing to listen to her body next time (with one last fart joke). Leblanc's cartoon-style art is notably sparse, featuring simple line drawings, no backgrounds, and splashes of color for hair and clothes (and poop). For kids refusing to stop and take necessary breaks, this may be the story they need. However, portraying waste as sentient and imprisoned inside one’s body may unsettle some. Ultimately, like a lot of toilet-centered books, readers will be split between finding the material funny or a bit gross.
A serviceable tale of good bathroom habits.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781069140302
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Newtown Station Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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