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QUEENIE FARMER HAD FIFTEEN DAUGHTERS

Name: QUEENIE FARMER HAD FIFTEEN DAUGHTERS
Author: Ann Campbell
ISBN: 0-15-201933-2

by Ann Campbell & illustrated by Holly Meade ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2001

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The author of the provocative Dora’s Box (1998) writes a rollicking and rhythmic maternal tale. The day that Queenie’s 15 daughters are born, her prize herd of cows runs off, her husband goes off to find them, and neither comes back. But Queenie copes. When the girls are six, they want individual birthday cakes. When they are 12, they want their own beds, and at 16, their own party dresses, rebelling against the bovine black-and-white they wore. In each case, Queenie rises to the occasion. The girls ask for so little, and she wants to give them so much: “She drafted designs on Monday, sawed wood on Tuesday, wove bedspreads on Wednesday, stuffed pillows on Thursday, hammered nails on Friday, and painted all day—and all night—on Saturday.” The results were “five cowboy beds, four princess beds, three water beds, two race-car beds, and one hammock.” And so it goes. Queenie even manages to locate and interview 15 fiancés for her girls. When the girls produce offspring—quintuplets, quadruplets, and so on—she sells her house, moves to a new one, and entertains all 55 babies every Sunday. But the rest of the week, she does exactly as she pleases. Rosy watercolors with Queenie’s signature polka dot motif reflect the bouncy mothers-can-do-everything jollity of the text. Go Queenie. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: May 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-15-201933-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Silver Whistle/Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2002

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
ONCE UPON A PRINCESS AND A PEA
by Ann Campbell & illustrated by Kathy Osborn Young

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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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)