With a neat musical twist, this picture book grows on you.
A community grows plants to the tune of an original song.
In an unnamed city, neighbors, friends, and families gather to grow a garden on the roof of a colorful building. The community members, of various skin colors, ages, and backgrounds, happily plant seeds, mark rows of veggies, water soil, and harvest food used to cook up a feast that they all enjoy together. The timeline is compressed, and the frustration that sometimes comes with gardening is omitted. However, the joy of growing one's own food and enjoying it with others comes through loud and clear: “A garden feast! Oh, what a treat. // Prepare the food and take a seat.” The singsong text, which is narrated in rhyme with repetition of the first and last lines of each quatrain, doesn’t highlight any particular characters or families. The words are actually lyrics to a song composed for the book and sung by British vocalist Holly Torton. While the lyrics might work better when sung rather than read, the book can be appreciated for its effort at combining music with instructional storytelling. Aguilera's colorful illustrations keep things lively with motion and busy activity on the crowded pages; each scene is full of people interacting with each other and working hard toward a common goal. The backmatter includes a musical score for the song, tips to start a garden, a primer on the stages of plant growth, and a QR code to access tie-in media online. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
With a neat musical twist, this picture book grows on you. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: May 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64686-495-9
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
An accessible entrance into the world of social-emotional skills.
What do you do when the world turns upside down?
Freckled redhead Tilda is a happy only child with a rollicking personality. With lots of books and toys and a multiracial group of friends, life is perfect as far as she’s concerned…until her world undergoes a troubling change (a subtle hint in the illustrations suggests that Tilda’s parents have divorced). Suddenly, nothing feels right, everything seems hard, and she doesn’t want to play with her friends. To reflect this emotional disorientation, the artwork shows Tilda in spatially distorted settings, complete with upside-down objects. It’s not until she sees an upturned ladybug struggle persistently before getting back on its feet (despite Tilda’s desire to help, the ladybug needs to help itself) that Tilda gains the courage to start taking baby steps in order to cope with her new reality. There are still challenges, and she needs to persevere, but eventually, she regains her zest for life and reconnects with her friends. Despite this, the ending avoids an easy happily-ever-after, which feels just right for the subject matter. Though a trifle didactic, the story sends an important message about the roles of self-efficacy and persistence when it comes to overcoming challenges and building resilience. Percival’s digital illustrations use transitions from grayscale to color to create symbolic meaning and have psychological depth, deftly capturing a child’s experience of trauma.
An accessible entrance into the world of social-emotional skills. (author's note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0822-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Sweet but misleading.
A plucky child becomes a space traveler.
Arceneaux was the first pediatric cancer survivor and the first with a prosthetic body part to become an astronaut, part of the first all-civilian space mission in 2021. The author, who in 2022 published the adult memoir Wild Ride and its 2023 adaptation for middle-grade readers, here shares her story with an even younger audience. Told in the third person, the narrative emphasizes the bravery she summoned as she coped with a cancer that left her with a prosthetic leg bone and knee (hinted at with an incision line in one illustration) and went on to become a space traveler. Curiously, Hayley and her astronaut colleagues are portrayed as children. They play with a “stuffed toy alien,” and in an imagined episode, Hayley ventures outside the spacecraft to perform a repair. Accompanied by softly hued illustrations with character designs that recall Precious Moments figurines, the narrative emphasizes familiar details of space travel that will appeal to children; both their bodies and their food float in zero gravity. The mission splashes down safely, and Hayley rushes to hug her mom. Though Arceneaux was the youngest astronaut to have orbited the Earth, she was an adult when she did so. The odd choice to depict her as a child reduces her compelling story to a fantasy. Arceneaux is white; other characters are diverse.
Sweet but misleading. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593443903
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Convergent
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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