A sensitive child experiences friendship in this book from a Taiwanese author/illustrator.
A heart with furnished rooms in each chamber sits inside a person’s silhouette. On the facing page, a child wearing a polka-dot dress and a smile sets a table for one. The text says, “My tiny self lives in a tiny house. Sometimes I enjoy being alone.” Other times, though, the child doesn’t want to be alone. “Especially when I think of times past.” The child wonders where their friends have gone and where to find new friends. But what makes a good friend anyway? Each day of the week, the child asks a new animal this question, and each animal has a different answer. Friends share food (the guinea pigs’ advice); friends snuggle up close (a cat’s); friends wait for you (a turtle’s). After a week, the child stands on the street, feeling lonely—until a boy approaches asking where he can find some friends. They look around together before walking off hand in hand. At the end, the protagonist is glad to have gone looking for friends, because “they were looking for me.” This thoughtful, quiet story offers a way for children to explore emotions and social relationships. Depicting multiple perspectives and emotional needs brings home the story’s gentle message of uniqueness, consideration, and interdependence. Soft colors dominate the pictures, which depict the children with paper-white skin and black hair.
This lovely journey makes a lovely read. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4788-6821-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Reycraft Books
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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Hee haw.
23
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The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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