A story of body acceptance that will resonate more with grown-ups than young people.
In this tale translated from Italian, a grandfather teaches his grandson about the beauty of aging.
Every Tuesday, Grandpa Amnon picks up Yotam from kindergarten, and the two go to Aviva’s cafe. Aviva calls them “the grandpa who laughs and the boy who draws,” and on this particular day, Yotam asks Grandpa about his wrinkles. “Wrinkles are something grownups get,” Grandpa responds. He explains that some wrinkles come from sad moments and others from happy ones. Yotam thinks that one of Grandpa’s wrinkles, which formed after the death of a beloved dog, “looks like Papaya’s tail,” while Grandpa claims that another comes from his frequent smiles after the birth of his grandson. The book wraps up with Yotam deciding that he simply must draw what he’s learned. Relying on lingering moments and lengthy descriptions, this feels more like a meditation on aging, loss, and joy for adults than a tale for children; those without a sentimental attachment to a wrinkled adult likely won’t feel any particular connection. The spare, blue art is intriguing, and the book’s creative use of outlining and white space (with characters who are either seen in blueish silhouettes or have skin the white of the page) adds to the mature feel of the text.
A story of body acceptance that will resonate more with grown-ups than young people. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781773068275
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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