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FIRST WORDS

From the My First Lift and Learn series

Nonessential but still quite cute.

A simple lift-the-flap offering provides various vocabulary words for little ones.

There's no narrative to speak of, just a good ol' fashioned guessing game. Each page has a big, bold image with "What do you see?" written in broad black type above. Babies are encouraged to name the object (ball, cat, chair, duck, apple, teddy bear, car, flower, blocks, cup) before lifting the nearly full-page flap revealing the answer and another picture of the object. These second pictures include a child or children with the object (a babe in the tub with the rubber duck, another snuggled with the teddy bear, etc.). The children represented are fairly diverse both ethnically and in age. The flaps are suitably sturdy, and a half-circle notch at the edge of each should make it relatively easy for little fingers to lift, encouraging children to interact with the books both physically and mentally. The four-color aesthetic is eye-catching to young and old alike, and the board books are constructed with a die-cut handle at the top allowing for easy transport when little bookworms are old enough to tote around a few of their favorites.

Nonessential but still quite cute. (Board book. 6 mos.-18 mos.)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-58925-623-1

Page Count: 10

Publisher: Tiger Tales

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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

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