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JOY

Name: JOY
Author: Corrinne Averiss
ISBN: 978-1-91027-766-9

by Corrinne Averiss ; illustrated by Isabelle Follath ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 19, 2018

Heartwarming.

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Fern loves Nanna‘s butterfly cakes, her mantelpiece mice, her white cat, Snowball, and most of all, she loves Nanna. But recently, Nanna has become sad, and she’s stopped baking and dusting. Even Snowball seems listless.

Mom can’t explain Nanna’s sadness, simply saying, “It’s like the joy has gone out of her life.” Understanding joy as the feeling she gets when she goes “whooshing down a slide,” Fern takes every container she can find to the park to catch some “whooosh!” for Nanna. When she sees a cute puppy, Fern feels a whooosh! but can’t catch it in her cardboard box. Fern gets the same feeling from a laughing baby, she but can’t catch it with her decorated coffee can, nor can her butterfly net catch the shimmer of sunlight on water. Fern walks home with heavy feet. Nanna asks her what’s wrong, and Fern tells her all that she saw and shares her disappointment at failing to catch a whooosh! for Nanna—which prompts a glowing “whooosh! of a smile” from Nanna. The repetition and patterning in Averiss’ text are appealing, and Fern’s emotions and concern will be familiar to many children. Follath’s delicate illustrations make the whooosh! visual as a green, sparkly swoosh. While it’s good to see Fern’s can-do attitude, her easy success belies the hard work that is recovery from depression. Fern and her family present white; Nanna uses a wheelchair.

Heartwarming. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: July 19, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-91027-766-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Words & Pictures

Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
SORREL AND THE SLEEPOVER
by Corrinne Averiss ; illustrated by Susan Varley

- BOOK REVIEW
A DOT IN THE SNOW
by Corrinne Averiss ; illustrated by Fiona Woodcock

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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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)