A sweet celebration of the growth mindset.
A young girl stifled by her perfectionist tendencies learns to find joy in simply doing her best.
Whatever new activity Mira starts she soon quits because of her fear of failure. While other kids forge ahead enthusiastically learning new skills, she makes herself small, until she is “just a shadow.” She regards her peers with wistful envy, thinking how much better they are than her at gymnastics, painting, dancing, and more. Mira is convinced that they succeed because they are naturals. Mired in self-doubt, Mira spends some alone time at the beach, contemplating her situation. Longing to let down her hair, she decides to try some tumbling moves on a piece of driftwood. She wobbles, her long, black braid caught on the wind, and flops. But Mira realizes it feels good to try! She smiles and goes again, stumbling and spinning and bouncing; her fixed mindset melts away as she finds the fun in learning and growing. As Mira blossoms, the red and blue palette of the colored-pencil illustrations, symbolizing her fears, transforms to one of warm, cheerful yellows and oranges. Pray’s rounded forms give both weight and softness to Mira, who appears Asian. The multiracial cast of children is full of energy and their physically expressive activities are captivating.
A sweet celebration of the growth mindset. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-54116-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
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
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