Not a strong choice for either springtime explorations or opposites, though teachers may reach for this in preparation for a...
The team of Chernesky and Swan rounds out the four seasons with this look at springtime opposites (Cheers for a Dozen Ears, 2014, etc.).
Miss Ava’s class takes a field trip to a local farm to see some chicks hatch. Along the way, they experience lots of opposites, which are highlighted in the text in bold and a larger font. As in Chernesky’s other seasonal books, the verse sometimes limps along, the lines often divided for rhyme at the expense of rhythm: “ ‘The white cat’s name is Whisker Jack,’ / the farmer said. ‘And Buster’s black.’ ” Other times, the pairs chosen seem odd and don’t strictly match the illustrations: “We giggled with our field trip buddies. / The ground below our boots was muddy. / Above, a sky of cloudy gray / drizzled on our sunny day.” The sun indeed hides behind a mass of dark clouds, but in no way could this be called a sunny day, save possibly attitudes. Swan’s busy mixed-media illustrations are rich in textures, the chickens especially colorful and patterned. Aside from the new chicks and the brilliant yellow daffodils, though, this could take place in almost any season (and indeed, the corn is tall enough to be late summer), weakening the seasonal theme.
Not a strong choice for either springtime explorations or opposites, though teachers may reach for this in preparation for a farm field trip. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8075-3632-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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