A powerful exploration of what it means to be welcomed, seen, and accepted.
After being excluded by her peers, a girl finally makes a friend.
The only student with brown skin and her hair in twists, Ameena always plays alone at school. “No one saw her. No one heard her. Or maybe they did. They just didn’t show it. She wasn’t sure.” When they aren’t ignoring her, the other kids look at her like she’s strange. But one day, there’s a new student named Sundus in her class. “Ameena saw her brownness. Saw her hijab, like the ones Ameena also wore to masjid. Saw it was the color of spring, the color of lilacs.” Ameena is not alone! The potential for friendship is there, but Ameena must first learn how to approach and communicate with Sundus, who mistakes Ameena’s initial clumsy overture for a taunt. But a tender moment between their mothers during a visit to the masjid, witnessed by Ameena, offers a blueprint for the language of friendship. Maydani’s sweetly hazy illustrations, which alternate between light pastels and darker shades, capture the characters’ evolving emotions. Thompkins-Bigelow’s words resonate deeply and convey feelings of isolation, exclusion, and joyful acceptance. Details such as the cornrowed braids in Ameena’s hair and the depiction of the imam as a Black man with a beard add texture and normalize Black Muslim representation in children’s literature.
A powerful exploration of what it means to be welcomed, seen, and accepted. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781419767210
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.
With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?
Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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