Generously open to young readers’ interpretations, this Swedish import lingers
A stony, lonely, mountain-dwelling Creature longs for companionship.
Prime’s translation conveys Stark’s fey tale to English-speaking readers with understated whimsy. Immured in her cave during the day to escape the harmful rays of the sun, the Creature thinks the world outside is as gray as her cave. She “dreams of the moon and of having someone small to sing to and care for.” At night, she emerges. She tries to swim to the moon, but it “shatter[s] into a thousand gleams.” She sings, “GRRR,” and blows spit bubbles as she looks up at it. The Creature is intemperate in her loneliness, and young readers will understand how her grumpiness leads her to pound the walls. Then a stray sun spark flies into her cave and becomes, for a single day, the Creature’s new Little Small. They aren’t really compatible at all, but the Creature does her best to understand the spark, who shows her the world’s colors and describes its landscapes and inhabitants. While their relationship is as evanescent as, well, a spark, it is nevertheless transformative for both; the Creature can now see colors, and the tiny spark sings a farewell “GRR” as it travels back to the Sun, lofted up in a spit bubble. Bondestam’s collage illustrations depict the Creature as a gray, pear-shaped figure with pointy teeth that somehow don’t seem scary at all.
Generously open to young readers’ interpretations, this Swedish import lingers . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59270-209-1
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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