A visually and emotionally immersive immigration story.
A boy begins school in a new country where everyone speaks gibberish.
Poignant front pages set the scene as a tiny woman and boy set sail from a tropical land and an airplane flies from a colorful landscape into a dulling gray sky. The story thus begins in a new grayscale landscape where only Dat, an Asian-featured boy, and his mother are in full color as he heads off to school. Vo ingeniously makes everything about this new environment feel foreign and surreal: the palette, the bulbous vehicles, and especially the wacky 1940s-style cartoon figures Dat encounters who speak in unintelligible icons inside speech bubbles (and repeatedly get his name wrong). Cartoon classmates are various types of humanoid creatures—some one-eyed, some horned—with large, expressive googly eyes, while Dat is finely drawn in realistic color, his facial expressions perfectly conveying his struggles with this new culture and language. But then one of his classmates engages with him. The two realize they can communicate and share English words through drawings, and as their bond blossoms, the new friend gains pale-skinned color, realistic form, and a name: Julie. Vo’s use of color and style as metaphors is not new, but the execution is stellar, creating a viscerally uncomfortable experience while also infusing the narrative with humor throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A visually and emotionally immersive immigration story. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64614-110-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PROFILES
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
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
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: Aug. 11, 2026
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