Otherworldly but with luminous pictures of a remote community.
Seb’s coastal village lies so far north the sun doesn’t shine during winter, making even daytime beach treasure hunts with his walrus companion “cold, dreary, and dark as night.”
Wearing his distinctive, Viking-horned winter hat, Seb sets out to find some sun for his small but diverse community. Little, pale Seb greets local friends: “old Bruce Brewster,” a darker-skinned, bearded fisherman; a bespectacled white knitter named Mrs. Vandermuss; a mixed group of miners sipping soup and coffee; and Mr. and Mrs. Muktuk, cued as Pacific Northwest Native Americans who wear furred parkas and carve totem poles. These neighbors provide pockets of warmth, light, and encouragement. Similarly, Gigot’s artwork, while overcast, provides engrossing details in street and window vignettes, with patches of lemony yellows and arctic whites contributing buoying moments of firelight, lamplight, and snow. The text, set in a candlelight yellow, glows on inky backgrounds. Readers might squint at what seem at first to be gloomy, digitally painted pencil illustrations, but they will soon feel lifted in noting people of varying skin tones, occupations, and ages, all engaged in productive work. Seb feels his work is to find sunlight for his neighbors, even if it means rowing all the way out to sea. Some might find the ending contrived, but it’s hard not to feel warmed by a luminous resolution so full of love.
Otherworldly but with luminous pictures of a remote community. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9990249-0-4
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Ripple Grove
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses...
This tan-skinned, freckle-faced narrator extols her own virtues while describing the challenges of being of mixed race.
Protagonist Lilly appears on the cover, and her voluminous curly, twirly hair fills the image. Throughout the rhyming narrative, accompanied by cartoonish digital illustrations, Lilly brags on her dark skin (that isn’t very), “frizzy, wild” hair, eyebrows, intellect, and more. Her five friends present black, Asian, white (one blonde, one redheaded), and brown (this last uses a wheelchair). This array smacks of tokenism, since the protagonist focuses only on self-promotion, leaving no room for the friends’ character development. Lilly describes how hurtful racial microaggressions can be by recalling questions others ask her like “What are you?” She remains resilient and says that even though her skin and hair make her different, “the way that I look / Is not all I’m about.” But she spends so much time talking about her appearance that this may be hard for readers to believe. The rhyming verse that conveys her self-celebration is often clumsy and forced, resulting in a poorly written, plotless story for which the internal illustrations fall far short of the quality of the cover image.
Mixed-race children certainly deserve mirror books, but they also deserve excellent text and illustrations. This one misses the mark on both counts. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63233-170-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Eifrig
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Fun, fun, fun all through the town!
This book’s gonna werk, werk, werk all through Pride Month and beyond.
Drag persona Lil Miss Hot Mess rewrites “The Wheels on the Bus” to create a fun, movement-filled, family-friendly celebration of drag. The text opens with the titular verse to establish the familiar song’s formulaic pattern: “The hips on the drag queen go SWISH, SWISH, SWISH… / ALL THROUGH THE TOWN!” Along the way, more and more drag queens join in the celebration. The unnamed queens proudly display a range of skin tones, sizes, and body modifications to create a diverse cast of realistic characters that could easily be spotted at a Pride event or on RuPaul’s Drag Race. The palette of both costumes and backgrounds is appropriately psychedelic, and there are plenty of jewels going “BLING, BLING, BLING.” Don’t tell the queens, but the flow is the book’s real star, because it encourages natural kinetic participation that will have groups of young readers giggling and miming along with the story. Libraries and bookshops hosting drag-queen storytimes will find this a popular choice, and those celebrating LGBTQ+ heritage will also find this a useful book for the pre-K crowd. Curious children unfamiliar with a drag queen may require a brief explanation, but the spectacle stands up just fine on its own platforms.
Fun, fun, fun all through the town! (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6765-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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