A lovely, reassuring tale for children set during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.
A little girl and her friends—following Covid-19 safety protocols—take an exhilarating bike ride in this picture book.
On a windy autumn day, with Dad jogging behind, a girl rides her balance bike—“Feet on pavement. / Tush in seat. / Kick, balance, roll.”—meeting friends whom she hasn’t seen “in FOREVER,” she says. The reason for that is clear from the masks the girl and her friends are wearing and the safe distance they maintain from one another. These Covid-19 concerns don’t interfere with their fun, and that’s the point in this gently affirming tale. The story shows that masks, like the helmet each child wears while biking, are no big deal, just a simple, everyday thing worn for protection. Wheelock and Evans, who collaborated on their first children’s book, We Toot! (2019), impart this message in a loose, free-verse style, capturing the high spirits of kids at play. Swartz’s watercolor illustrations—softly hued and evocative of breezy outdoor fun—depict the kids, each wearing a differently patterned mask, as a diverse group with varied skin tones and hair colors. Speeding down a steep hill ends with the girl’s spill and tears, but Dad is there. Besides, it’s more important, she notes, to help a little boy find the toy bunny he lost during the ride. The story then repeats with one change: The characters no longer wear masks, an unspoken pledge that one day they will no longer be necessary.
A lovely, reassuring tale for children set during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73313-745-4
Page Count: 54
Publisher: House of Tomorrow
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his...
It’s a wonderful day in the jungle, so why’s Jim Panzee so grumpy?
When Jim woke up, nothing was right: "The sun was too bright, the sky was too blue, and bananas were too sweet." Norman the gorilla asks Jim why he’s so grumpy, and Jim insists he’s not. They meet Marabou, to whom Norman confides that Jim’s grumpy. When Jim denies it again, Marabou points out that Jim’s shoulders are hunched; Jim stands up. When they meet Lemur, Lemur points out Jim’s bunchy eyebrows; Jim unbunches them. When he trips over Snake, Snake points out Jim’s frown…so Jim puts on a grimacelike smile. Everyone has suggestions to brighten his mood: dancing, singing, swinging, swimming…but Jim doesn’t feel like any of that. He gets so fed up, he yells at his animal friends and stomps off…then he feels sad about yelling. He and Norman (who regrets dancing with that porcupine) finally just have a sit and decide it’s a wonderful day to be grumpy—which, of course, makes them both feel a little better. Suzanne Lang’s encouragement to sit with your emotions (thus allowing them to pass) is nearly Buddhist in its take, and it will be great bibliotherapy for the crabby, cranky, and cross. Oscar-nominated animator Max Lang’s cartoony illustrations lighten the mood without making light of Jim’s mood; Jim has comically long arms, and his facial expressions are quite funny.
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his journey. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-53786-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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