While making a point and playing up a scenario that’s probably familiar in some households, this doesn’t earn a place at the...
Thanksgiving dinner is fraught with potential for humiliation.
Roiling with indignation, an 8-year-old flower- and sequin-bedecked girl fumes at being made to sit with babies and toddlers at a separate holiday table laden with sippy cups, plastic dinnerware, and diners who carouse with their dishes and gloppy food. In sometimes-amusing but clunky verse that doesn’t scan well, the child argues her case for a seat among the grown-ups, itemizing all that she knows how to do. Scansion isn’t the only casualty: Ostensibly for the purpose of mining some not-very-humorous comic moments, the author sends internal logic on holiday, too. Would it not have occurred to anyone that an 8-year-old might balk at sitting with much-younger children? Would parents of such small fry not help their little ones eat or supervise their table time? All is resolved when the offended child’s mother gently explains that her daughter need only have expressed her desires beforehand. When finally invited to eat with the adults, the girl has a grand time, assists with cleanup and farewells afterward, and realizes things weren’t so bad after all. The colorful, energetic illustrations, embellished with emphatic display types that match the irate white girl’s protests, are expressive and feature secondary characters of diverse skin tones, ages, and sizes (final art not seen).
While making a point and playing up a scenario that’s probably familiar in some households, this doesn’t earn a place at the head of the table. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68446-002-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
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)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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