A sweet, community-building story that highlights different abilities and the importance of offering a helping hand.
A young fox who is deaf inspires every creature she meets to help others in Peterson’s picture book.
Ada the fox has been wearing aids to help her hear since she was just a cub. Her parents tell her that just like her hearing aids are helpers to assist her in hearing better, she can be a helper, too. On her way to dance in a talent show, Ada meets a mole who can’t see well in the light, a finch who stutters but sings beautifully, and a snake who can’t reach apples from a tree. After she encourages each of them, the three friends join Ada at the talent show to help keep her fears (“will the others laugh at me?”) from getting in the way of her dancing. With a catchy refrain about helping others, this rhyming picture book affirms the notion that a kind word, no matter how small, can be just what someone else needs to hear. Peterson shows that kindness magnified back, creating a community of helpers. The text’s scansion flows well throughout with a steady beat worthy of Ada’s breakdancing. ASL translations highlight a word in each spread and provide directions for signing the letters. Fischer’s cartoon illustrations feature friendly forest animals wearing various articles of human clothing; the muted earth tones work well for the woodland setting and make Ada’s purple tutu stand out.
A sweet, community-building story that highlights different abilities and the importance of offering a helping hand.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 9788269219616
Page Count: 39
Publisher: Launch Mission Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts.
In this latest slice in the Food Group series, Humble Pie learns to stand up to a busy friend who’s taking advantage of his pal’s hard work on the sidelines.
Jake the Cake and Humble Pie are good friends. Where Pie is content to toil in the background, Jake happily shines in the spotlight. Alert readers will notice that Pie’s always right there, too, getting A-pluses and skiing expertly just behind—while also doing the support work that keeps every school and social project humming. “Fact: Nobody notices pie when there’s cake nearby!” When the two friends pair up for a science project, things begin well. But when the overcommitted Jake makes excuse after excuse, showing up late or not at all, a panicked Pie realizes that they won’t finish in time. When Jake finally shows up on the night before the project’s due, Pie courageously confronts him. “And for once, I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.” The friends talk it out and collaborate through the night for the project’s successful presentation in class the next day. John and Oswald’s winning recipe—plentiful puns and delightful visual jokes—has yielded another treat here. The narration does skew didactic as it wraps up: “There’s nothing wrong with having a tough conversation, asking for help, or making sure you’re being treated fairly.” But it’s all good fun, in service of some gentle lessons about social-emotional development.
A flavorful call to action sure to spur young introverts. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780063469730
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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