A lovely story about courage and community with a darling protagonist.
A young girl named Ibb transforms her town when she dares to enter its very last castle, which no one has entered since anyone can remember.
Ibb wears stripes and polka dots, princess dresses, tutus and butterfly wings, and big yellow boots. She walks by the castle every day. It is the last castle, and it stands in the middle of her town, with a guard who watches passers-by from the tower. The townspeople, never having entered the castle, speculate about what is inside. “Monsters.” “Giants.” “Snakes.” Ibb wonders if it’s something else. One day, she floats across the moat and knocks on the big door. She is scared away. But soon, an envelope arrives in the mail, inviting her to the castle. Everyone tells her to stay away, but even though she is scared, Ibb wants to know what is inside. The guard welcomes her and shows her around. What he wants is for someone “brave” and “curious” to take his place. Ibb thinks and decides that she’ll help him if he lets the townspeople into the castle too. It turns out to be a win-win for everyone. The illustrations, in pen and ink and watercolor, render Ibb, a young brown girl with afro puffs who shows her fellow townspeople about bravery and kindness, and her story truly memorable. The guard and most of the other adults in Ibb’s life are white; a friend named Alex also presents black.
A lovely story about courage and community with a darling protagonist. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2574-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Sure to have little ones giggling.
Jacques is a hedgehog with a big secret: “I wear real, bona fide underwear.”
Our narrator received a mysterious package one day; an illustration shows a pair of underwear tied to a balloon with a note “from the Universe” floating down into Jacques’ burrow. Hedgehogs don’t wear underwear, however. Will Jacques be shunned? Jacques worries but comes to a decision: “I have to wear them. When I do I feel special.” Determined, Jacques, who’s been invited to a party, makes a dramatic entrance, with undies in hand. Jacques’ declaration (“I WEAR UNDERWEAR”) is met with remarks of dismay, before another hedgehog opens up about similar fears and shows off a pair of cowboy boots. More hedgehogs introduce themselves with their own confessions. The story ends with Jacques unveiling a painting of the underwear in a gallery filled with hedgehogs wearing all sorts of attire. Though the book is simple in plot, characters, and setting, it wins in its balance of bathroom humor, dramatic storytelling, and celebrations of individual expression. French words are peppered throughout, adding to the fun without detracting from the story for those unfamiliar with the language. The cartoonish illustrations brim with fun; Valdez relies heavily on geometric shapes (triangle noses for the hedgehogs; huge circles for their eyes). Details such as speech bubbles and recurring turtle and snake characters contribute to the outlandish humor.
Sure to have little ones giggling. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781250814388
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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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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