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WHAT IF YOUR BEST FRIEND WERE BLUE?

Name: WHAT IF YOUR BEST FRIEND WERE BLUE?
Author: Vera Kochan
ISBN: 978-0-7614-5897-5

by Vera Kochan & illustrated by Viviana Garofoli ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011

A big miss.

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This simple picture book is intended to teach both color awareness—of shades such as blue, green and yellow—and color-blindness in terms of skin tones. It doesn’t work.

The book begins by asking, “What if your best friend were blue?” The child narrator answers, “Even if my best friend were blue, he’d still play soccer with me.” The nominal dialogue continues: “What if a policewoman were green?” “Even if a policewoman were green, she’d still help me find my mom and dad.” The book continues exactly like this, featuring a yellow doctor, a purple fireman, a red teacher and an orange babysitter. The intended message of this title is highjacked by two little words, repeated again and again: “even if.” This phrase, suggesting as it does that a best friend would still play soccer despite his blue-ness and the policewoman still provide a helping hand despite her green-ness, does not undermine homogeneity, but rather confirms whiteness as humankind’s default skin color. Further contributing to this notion is the fact that the main character is white, as are all the other adults and children who are not being used to demonstrate a particular color; skin tones aside from white that actually show up in the real world are absent entirely. Even the lessons in identifying colors fall apart here. The policewoman who is supposed to be green actually first appears as an off-putting shade of yellow.

A big miss. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-7614-5897-5

Page Count: 24

Publisher: Marshall Cavendish

Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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THE PUMPKIN THIEF

From the Leaf Thief series

by Alice Hemming ; illustrated by Nicola Slater ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2026

More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.

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Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.

Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.

More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: July 28, 2026

ISBN: 9781464268076

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

Review Posted Online: yesterday

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SUN THIEF
by Alice Hemming ; illustrated by Nicola Slater

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SNOW THIEF
by Alice Hemming ; illustrated by Nicola Slater

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BISON AND THE BUTTERFLY
by Alice Hemming ; illustrated by Nancy Leschnikoff

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)