The ache of homesickness is shot through Heo's story of the travails that wait upon the emigrant's experience. Yungsu has just moved to America from Korea. The neighborhood is new, he hasn't any friends, and his father works the long hours of a grocer. Yungsu wants to go hometo Korea. Late one night his father comes to see him in bed. He tells Yungsu the story of a pair of rubber shoesconsidered the best shoes to ownYungsu's grandmother bought his father when he was young. He wanted to keep those shoes forever. ``I want to give you something,'' the father says, ``like my rubber shoes, but something you can have all the time. That's why we're here. I hope you understand.'' It's a quietly epiphanal moment for Yungsu, and his life takes a modest turn for the better. This story has an unpretentious grace about it: The pain is there but so is the peaceful, hopeful presence of Yungsu's mother and father. Heo's illustrations are elegantly, fiercely two- dimensionalprimitive, colorful, with all sorts of odd, surprising perspectives and colors: pumpkin orange, grape, olive green, khaki, dusty rose, and maroon on mustard backgrounds. Hope and promise join with longing in a heartfelt book. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-531-06873-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fun, fun, fun all through the town!
This book’s gonna werk, werk, werk all through Pride Month and beyond.
Drag persona Lil Miss Hot Mess rewrites “The Wheels on the Bus” to create a fun, movement-filled, family-friendly celebration of drag. The text opens with the titular verse to establish the familiar song’s formulaic pattern: “The hips on the drag queen go SWISH, SWISH, SWISH… / ALL THROUGH THE TOWN!” Along the way, more and more drag queens join in the celebration. The unnamed queens proudly display a range of skin tones, sizes, and body modifications to create a diverse cast of realistic characters that could easily be spotted at a Pride event or on RuPaul’s Drag Race. The palette of both costumes and backgrounds is appropriately psychedelic, and there are plenty of jewels going “BLING, BLING, BLING.” Don’t tell the queens, but the flow is the book’s real star, because it encourages natural kinetic participation that will have groups of young readers giggling and miming along with the story. Libraries and bookshops hosting drag-queen storytimes will find this a popular choice, and those celebrating LGBTQ+ heritage will also find this a useful book for the pre-K crowd. Curious children unfamiliar with a drag queen may require a brief explanation, but the spectacle stands up just fine on its own platforms.
Fun, fun, fun all through the town! (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6765-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A sweet but inessential offering for families who desire a bedtime story with a Christian theme.
A gentle bedtime story written as a prayer lists many reasons to be thankful.
An attractive cover shows the pink-cheeked, white child curled up asleep on a crescent moon, with a cozy home in the background. The story opens with the same child in bed with, probably, an older sibling; the prayer begins: “Dear God.” Appealing double-page spreads in soft, dreamy watercolors show a succession of children of diverse skin tones and hair textures, with loving families, friends, pets, and green spaces for play. The loose illustration style uses a flattened perspective reminiscent of a child’s artwork, with equally childlike static depictions of the characters. This naïve style leads to confusion, as it’s not clear whether the child on the cover reappears throughout in inconsistent portrayals, with hair sometimes redder or curlier or skin tone darker, or whether these figures are all entirely different children. Family relationships are also difficult to define. One particularly puzzling illustration, which may be problematic for some readers, shows the child praying at night in her bed with an adult, possibly male figure also under the covers. The short, rhyming text is a bit singsong, with specific references to God in the repeated thank-you pattern. The words “thank you” and other key phrases are set in larger, purple type, with other phrases unnecessarily set in italics. Despite these small drawbacks, the overall tone is soothing and appreciative, with gratitude and caring for others a clear theme.
A sweet but inessential offering for families who desire a bedtime story with a Christian theme. (Picture book/religion. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4181-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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