A good choice to safely teach yoga asanas to youngsters while promoting quiet, calm movement.
Another worthy addition to the Yoga Tots board-book series.
Happy Tiger provides step-by-step instruction for an energizing yoga asana sequence. Brave Bear (published simultaneously) takes a toddler through a morning stretch. Each book demonstrates seven asanas, skipping poses that can be frustrating for toddlers or cause a quiet yoga practice to dissolve into laughter. Happy Tiger eliminates balancing twists; Brave Bear skips Tree and Chair postures. Instead, the books prescribe flowing movements tailored to the physical abilities of tykes. On the verso pages, the eponymous animal characters model the poses while the text encourages children to channel their inner tigers/bears. These imaginative play prompts are designed to hold small children’s attention, but some of them (“How does it feel to be such a fine cat?”) may interrupt the young yogi’s flow. On the recto pages, seven children representing a variety of ethnicities, body types, and skill levels move through the same postures as the animals, and simple sentences convey the instructions, including breathing cues and reminders to repeat movements on the opposite side of the body. Attention to breath is a strength of these simple guides, ensuring that even adults who are not practicing yogis can safely guide children in the movements. Meza’s bright, colorful digital illustrations will appeal to the target audience.
A good choice to safely teach yoga asanas to youngsters while promoting quiet, calm movement. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64686-492-8
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This revisitation of familiar holiday fare doesn’t stand out.
A visit from St. Nicholas with a trip to the barnyard, too.
In their cadence, rhyme scheme, and word choices, Manning’s adapted verses borrow liberally from the original poem credited to Clement C. Moore (and sometimes to Henry Livingston). Occasional word choices can read like missteps rather than innovations, however; the original poem’s “wondering eyes” are recast as “wandering eyes,” for example. Instead of using the poem’s original first-person narrator, this version employs the omniscient third to introduce a little lamb who awakens and observes Santa Claus’ sleigh landing on the farmhouse roof. No one joins her in her observations, but readers are invited to do so as she tries to figure out what’s happening in the full-bleed, rather flat art that seems like something from an animation studio. Eventually, it’s not what the lamb sees but what she hears that moves her from befuddlement to understanding, when Santa (who appears White) laughs “Ho, ho, ho.” As she watches him place presents under the tree in the house, she hopes he’ll have gifts for her, too. He does, of course, and the illustrations show the fruits, veggies, and other animal-friendly treats he puts into their stockings before leaving the little lamb to settle in again to sleep away the rest of Christmas Eve. It’s all sweet but hardly novel.
This revisitation of familiar holiday fare doesn’t stand out. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0625-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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