Dairman draws inspiration from the Rabari people, an Indigenous group of nomadic herders and shepherds that live in northwest India, to showcase how two children live and thrive in the era of climate change.
Clipped couplets imagine a nomadic desert girl and a village-dwelling boy and how their lives intersect when the former’s family travels in search of water and the latter’s family seeks to escape it. Paneled pages compare and contrast the children’s experiences. “Patterned veil. / Covered hair” depicts the girl’s mother with a flowing veil and the boy’s father winding a turban on. “Trek for water. / Head to school” reveals two different journeys. Readers see how extreme weather threatens both ways of life before, at the end of the book, both children find higher ground and dance together: “Thirst quenched. / Dry and sound. // Round the fire, / songs of joy.” Bangalore-based Sreenivasan’s extensive research is evident in her saturated, detailed illustrations of families, plants, animals, and nomadic and village life. Dairman’s author’s note provides context and emphasizes that extreme dry and wet weather “will continue to put…lives…in very real danger.” Text and illustrations work beautifully in concert: Desert and monsoon scenes each have a distinctive color palette—golds, rusts, and reds; violets, greens, and blues—and variations in page composition and panel placement create necessary narrative tension.
A beautiful and important book about climate change featuring those who are most affected by it. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-51806-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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A diverse cast of children first makes a fleet of hot air balloons and then takes to the sky in them.
Lifestyle maven Gaines uses this activity as a platform to celebrate diversity in learning and working styles. Some people like to work together; others prefer a solo process. Some take pains to plan extensively; others know exactly what they want and jump right in. Some apply science; others demonstrate artistic prowess. But “see how beautiful it can be when / our differences share the same sky?” Double-page spreads leading up to this moment of liftoff are laid out such that rhyming abcb quatrains typically contain one or two opposing concepts: “Some of us are teachers / and share what we know. / But all of us are learners. / Together is how we grow!” In the accompanying illustration, a bespectacled, Asian-presenting child at a blackboard lectures the other children on “balloon safety.” Gaines’ text has the ring of sincerity, but the sentiment is hardly an original one, and her verse frequently sacrifices scansion for rhyme. Sometimes it abandons both: “We may not look / or work or think the same, / but we all have an / important part to play.” Swaney’s delicate, pastel-hued illustrations do little to expand on the text, but they are pretty. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.2-by-18.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 70.7% of actual size.)
As insubstantial as hot air. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4003-1423-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Displaying his distinctive voice and images, Reynolds celebrates the joys and challenges of being a creative spirit.
“I am a HAPPY DREAMER,” cheers a thin, spiky-haired white boy as he flies skyward, streaming yellow swirls of sparkles. This little “dreamer maximus” piles on the energy with colors and noise and the joy-filled exuberance he has for life. “Wish you could HEAR inside my head / TRUMPETY, ZIGZAG JAZZ!” With clear honesty, he shares that the world tells him to be quiet, to focus and pay attention. Like a roller-coaster ride, Reynolds’ text and illustrations capture the energetic side of creativity and the gloom of cleaning up the messes that come with it while providing a wide vocabulary to describe emotional brilliance and resilience. The protagonist makes no apologies for expressing his feelings and embracing his distinct view of the world. This makes him happy. The book finishes with a question to readers: “What kind of dreamer are you?” Hinging outward, the double-page spread opens to four panels, each with a dozen examples of multiracial children being happy and being dreamers, showing inspiring possibilities for exploration. The best way, of course, is to “just BE YOU.”
A sweet gift to praise spirited individuality, this choice encourages readers to dream big. Let those sparkles fly! (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-86501-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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