A delightful tale that is likely to be a perennial first at storytime.
A collage of new experiences right from the first of the year.
A young girl with beige skin and straight, brown hair wakes up to the first day of the new year. Thus follows a parade of the year’s firsts—waffles, new umbrella, snowfall, fight with her brother (a recurring theme that compounds exponentially as the year goes on), and more. Klein’s simple, understated text effectively and poignantly paints a world of hilarity mixed with drama (“First crush”; “First missed bus”; “Second lost umbrella”). Shown in both vignettes and full-page art, Leng’s soft watercolor palette is punctuated by the characters’ evocative expressions that add to the emotional depth of the book. While books about the seasons are a familiar sight on shelves, this fresh twist offers young readers a glimpse of important moments in a child’s year—moments that add up to a wealth of experience and anticipation of firsts still to come. At times, the “first” motif slips slightly. These experiences are meant to occur within one year, so readers may wonder at “First giving” and “First getting” at the end of the year in winter (no birthdays?); or, for that matter, more than one mask (“First new mask”) at Halloween. However these are minor quibbles in an otherwise satisfying read. The endpapers are worth poring over, done in a scrapbook style. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-21-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
A delightful tale that is likely to be a perennial first at storytime. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4208-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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