This exploration of children in transition reminds readers that change can make even El Cucuy insecure.
Ramón has a frenemy in El Cucuy, an anxious boogeyman.
Nothing is the same since Ramón and his family—and El Cucuy—have moved. The house is different, the night noises are different, and the new school will definitely be different. How can El Cucuy’s howling and growling frighten the boy when there are much scarier things out there? Will the school be too big? Will the kids make fun of how he speaks? Will he make any friends? He misses his old home, and so does El Cucuy—being uprooted is no fun at all. The frenemies take turns reminiscing about the good old days and reminding each other about when they were each brave and strong. Glowing red eyes in the closet? Who cares! Scratching at the window? Nothing a good loud rendition of “Cielito Lindo” can’t overcome. Before anyone can say “boo”—or “¡buuum!”—they’re arm in arm, brave and smiling. Higuera’s back-and-forth dialogue serves to defuse the duo’s mutual fear of the unknown with a point-by-point analysis of each potentially scary scenario. Spanish phrases are peppered throughout (one phrase in error); while there is no glossary, most should be accessible to readers who don’t speak the language. Perdomo’s whimsical illustrations portray El Cucuy as a hairy, fanged-but-cute dumpling of a monster, a far cry from the more anthropomorphic and mega-frightening creature of Mexican folklore.
This exploration of children in transition reminds readers that change can make even El Cucuy insecure. (author's note, illustrator's note) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4445-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
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