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SPRING FOR SOPHIE

Name: SPRING FOR SOPHIE
Author: Yael Werber
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5134-5

by Yael Werber ; illustrated by Jen Hill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 21, 2017

Rural and suburban readers in northern climes will find much to recognize.

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A little girl uses all her senses to detect the signs of spring.

Sophie is a fair-skinned preschooler with a brown pageboy. She lives with her family in a prosperous-looking rural community in what looks like the author’s home state, Vermont. Hill’s accomplished gouache paintings depict leafless trees, snow-covered ground, and a big, comfortable red house. Fanciful touches, such as a parent bluebird impossibly cuddling a baby in a snow-covered birdhouse, will appeal to children even if they are not strictly accurate. Sophie wants to “know how spring is coming.” Her mother tells her to listen for bird song, and one day she hears “the first chirps.” Her dad tells her to feel for soft, muddy ground underfoot; it takes a while, but finally she does. Then she watches for the snow to melt and waits “for the air…to smell like earth and rain.” Each of these transformations takes its time, Hill varying layouts expertly to control the pace. Six vignettes of Sophie playing in the snow on one spread emphasize the passage of time; one full-bleed double-page spread stops it altogether. Together, words and pictures capture the feeling that spring will never come—and then it comes in a rush, trees leafing out in just the last few pages, when Sophie joyfully catches raindrops on her tongue: “this is what spring tastes like!”

Rural and suburban readers in northern climes will find much to recognize. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4814-5134-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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THE DAY THE CRAYONS MADE FRIENDS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2025

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.

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After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.

Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 3, 2025

ISBN: 9780593622360

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE FREDDIE TWO PANTS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins

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HAPPY FATHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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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)