A warm if at times stilted celebration of all things big girl.
Rhyming text and exuberant art follow a little girl in an interracial family getting used to her status as big sister.
The narrator has brown skin and tightly curled black hair in small braids with bows. Her mother and baby brother share her skin color and hair texture, but her father, her grandmother, and a friend are white. Race is unmentioned in the text, which introduces the girl’s “baby big girl game,” in which she playfully regresses and tries to wear her old baby clothes and squeeze into her baby bed. Her parents lovingly affirm her big-girl status, and while she seems a bit conflicted, other spreads show her decided enjoyment at doing things her baby brother cannot. Several British words and phrases (“Mummy” and “nappy,” for example) are retained in the American edition of this picture book; this cultural specificity adds to its appeal, though there are times when the rhyme doesn’t work particularly well, and it never seems essential to the book’s success. A child’s narration is often difficult to achieve without a sense of adult ventriloquism, and the rhyme makes this yet more fraught.
A warm if at times stilted celebration of all things big girl. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-3947-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Andersen Press USA
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good choice for caregivers looking for a positive, uncomplicated introduction to a new baby that focuses on everything an...
A little boy exults in his new role as big brother.
Rhyming text describes the arrival of a new baby and all of the big brother’s rewarding new duties. He gets to help with feedings, diaper changes, playtime, bathtime, and naptime. Though the rhyming couplets can sometimes feel a bit forced and awkward, the sentiment is sweet, as the focus here never veers from the excitement and love a little boy feels for his tiny new sibling. The charming, uncluttered illustrations convincingly depict the growing bond between this fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked, smiling pair of boys. In the final pages, the parents, heretofore kept mostly out of view, are pictured holding the children. The accompanying text reads: “Mommy, Daddy, baby, me. / We love each other—a family!” In companion volume I Am a Big Sister, the little boy is replaced with a little girl with bows in her hair. Some of the colors and patterns in the illustrations are slightly altered, but it is essentially the same title.
A good choice for caregivers looking for a positive, uncomplicated introduction to a new baby that focuses on everything an older sibling can do to help. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-68886-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt.
A love song from parents to their child.
This title will seem quite similar to the many others about parents’ deep love for their children. The text is wholly composed of first-person declarations of parental love, and it’s juxtaposed with illustrations of the child with one or both parents. It’s not always clear who the “I” speaking is, and there are a few pages that instead use “we.” Most sentences begin with “I love you more” phrasing to communicate that nothing could undermine parental love: “I love you more than all the sleepless nights…and all the early, tired mornings.” The accompanying pictures depict the child as a baby with weary parents. Later spreads show the child growing up, and the phrasing shifts away from the challenges of parenting to its joys and to attempts to quantify love: “I love you more than all the blades of grass at the park…and all the soccer that we played.” Throughout, Bell’s illustrations use pastel tones and soft visual texture to depict cozy, wholesome scenes that are largely redundant of the straightforward, warm text. They feature a brown-haired family with a mother, father, and child, who all appear to be white (though the father has skin that’s a shade darker than the others’).
It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0652-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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