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BEST FRINTS AT SKROOL

Name: BEST FRINTS AT SKROOL
Author: Antoinette Portis
ISBN: 978-1-62672-871-4

by Antoinette Portis ; illustrated by Antoinette Portis ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 26, 2018

Gurm’s company, but threep doesn’t have to be a crowd when it comes to starting school and making new friends.

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Omek and Yelfred have weathered friendship difficulties before (Best Frints in the Whole Universe, 2016), but can their relationship survive Yelfred’s picking Q-B as his new best frint?

Skrool on Boborp is similar to school on Earth, with rules, learning, and bloox to read, though Portis’ pictures and text hilariously contradict each other. “When the bell BLANGS the stroodents sit quietly.” In the picture, they bite and kick, and across the gutter, they yell as they “learn to listen when their skreecher spleeks.” At recess, “childrinx make new frints,” and this is where the trouble starts for poor Omek, whose best frint, Yelfred, has a new best frint, Q-B. Omek’s frown deepens and their shoulders and head sag ever more as Yelfred and Q-B grow close and leave them out of their fun. But some lunch sharing (“Spewd flight!”) gives Omek the opening he needs. Portis’ illustrations, done with pencil, charcoal, and a Cintiq drawing tablet, once again use a brilliant palette and digital textures to great effect, bringing to vivid life this alien world. The characters are diverse in color, shape, size, and numbers of eyes, tentacles, and appendages. Endpapers add to the fun (and help decipher the Boborpian language) with a glossary of terms, the numbers from one to 10, and directions for playing eye ball in the peedle pit.

Gurm’s company, but threep doesn’t have to be a crowd when it comes to starting school and making new friends. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: June 26, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-62672-871-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook

Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
NOT-A-BOX CITY
by Antoinette Portis ; illustrated by Antoinette Portis

- BOOK REVIEW
A SEED GROWS
by Antoinette Portis ; illustrated by Antoinette Portis

- BOOK REVIEW
A NEW GREEN DAY
by Antoinette Portis ; illustrated by Antoinette Portis

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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)

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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IT'S NOT EASY BEING A GHOST

From the It's Not Easy Being series

by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2024

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.

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A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.

Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)