Sofía’s best realization is that her new lifestyle can lead to other positive accomplishments, which helps to cut the...
A quinceañera and a special purple dress serve as inspiration for a little girl to change her lifestyle with exercise and healthier foods.
Third-grader Sofía is used to wearing her older cousin Rosario's hand-me-down sweaters and shirts, but when a beautifully fitted dress especially given to her for Rosario’s upcoming event is much too tight, her mother gently notes that Sofía has “a little extra here and there.” Losing weight is not easy, but Mom suggests that she and sister Mari can do it together by exercising and eliminating sodas and junk food. Despite some initial grumbling, for the next two months, Sofía, Mari and Mom begin to walk to and from school, eat fruits and veggies for snacks, enjoy dancing to music at home, and have fun ice skating. The happy result is a leaner and more energetic Sofía wearing her fitted dress proudly at Rosario’s party. A combination of collage, acrylic and crayon delineate a richly bronze-toned and dark-haired Latino family in daily life, all shopping, playing and working together to reach a goal. Plump round faces and bellies gradually slim down, with happy smiles all around. The dialogue-driven bilingual English/Spanish text emphasizes that hard work, moral support and determination can successfully meet a challenge.
Sofía’s best realization is that her new lifestyle can lead to other positive accomplishments, which helps to cut the didacticism of this good-hearted book. (activity sheet) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-55885-701-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Piñata Books/Arte Público
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
This multigenerational snuggle will encourage the sharing of old memories and the creation of new ones.
Hill and Bobbiesi send a humungous hug from grandmothers to their granddaughters everywhere.
Delicate cartoon art adds details to the rhyming text showing multigenerational commonalities. “You and I are alike in such wonderful ways. / You will see more and more as you grow” (as grandmother and granddaughter enjoy the backyard together); “I wobbled uncertainly just as you did / whenever I tried something new” (as a toddler takes first steps); “And if a bad dream woke me up in the night, / I snuggled up with my lovey too” (grandmother kisses granddaughter, who clutches a plush narwhal). Grandmother-granddaughter pairs share everyday joys like eating ice cream, dancing “in the rain,” and making “up silly games.” Although some activities skew stereotypically feminine (baking, yoga), a grandmother helps with a quintessential volcano experiment (this pair presents black, adding valuable STEM representation), another cheers on a young wheelchair athlete (both present Asian), and a third, wearing a hijab, accompanies her brown-skinned granddaughter on a peace march, as it is “important to speak out for what you believe.” The message of unconditional love is clear throughout: “When you need me, I’ll be there to listen and care. / There is nothing that keeps us apart.” The finished book will include “stationery…for a special letter from Grandma to you!”
This multigenerational snuggle will encourage the sharing of old memories and the creation of new ones. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0623-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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