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THE TOTALLY SECRET SECRET

Name: THE TOTALLY SECRET SECRET
Author: Bob Shea
ISBN: 978-1-4847-1378-5

From the Ballet Cat series

by Bob Shea ; illustrated by Bob Shea ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2015

Here’s hoping that Ballet Cat and Sparkles return soon to help new readers learn about friendship. This series will not be a...

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A pink cat and a polka-dot horse join together in a light story of secrets and friendship.

Ballet Cat and Sparkles the horse want to find something to do. At each page turn, Sparkles comes up with an idea that is quickly shot down by Ballet Cat, a dance-obsessed Debbie Downer, for whom ballet is all. Crafts? They can’t leap with scissors. Checkers? Their kicks would knock over the board. Sell lemonade? It would splash when they spun. When Sparkles suggests they might do something other than spin, Ballet Cat shoots that down, and Sparkles realizes they are going to play ballet. Again. With half-closed eyes and a resigned attitude, Sparkles plays ballet with reluctance. He ’fesses up his painful secret, “Sometimes I don’t want to play ballet.” With speech bubbles, deft cartoon strokes, and emotional close-ups, Shea lets young readers easily decode both the illustrations and the text. Though the mood is light, the reality—one friend calling all the shots—is not. Using easy words to set up a common situation, Shea dips his toes into the early-reader pool. The marriage of amusing story and expressive illustrations makes this one that new readers will enjoy over and over.

Here’s hoping that Ballet Cat and Sparkles return soon to help new readers learn about friendship. This series will not be a secret for long. (Early reader. 4-8)

Pub Date: May 5, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4847-1378-5

Page Count: 56

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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PARROTFISH HAS A SUPERPOWER
by Jill Esbaum ; illustrated by Bob Shea

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OH, ARE YOU AWAKE?
by Bob Shea ; illustrated by Jarvis

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STINKBIRD HAS A SUPERPOWER
by Jill Esbaum ; illustrated by Bob Shea

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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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CLAYMATES

by Dev Petty ; illustrated by Lauren Eldridge ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2017

The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...

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Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.

A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.

The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)