Feathers and friendship make for a good pairing in this gentle ode to appreciating both.
When birds are easier to speak to than people, what do you do when you meet another bird lover?
It’s been a month, and Jon still hasn’t spoken to another kid his age since he moved to town. Still, while he may not talk much, he’s an excellent listener. He listens particularly to birds of all sorts, in the fields and the skies. One evening he hears a barred owl and imitates its song. Yet when he follows its response, he instead finds a girl and fellow bird lover named Janet. Together they talk and listen together, “for days and weeks, / and into the years.” While Yolen’s author’s note states that this book is a partner to her Caldecott Award winner Owl Moon (1987), illustrated by John Schoenherr, it might be more accurate to say it exists in the same universe. The story sets up a nice series of contrasts (Jon’s mother’s chattiness versus her son’s silence versus the give and take of Jon and Janet’s conversations). Meanwhile Wilson weaves images of birds into an array of panels. Delicious details also hide in the cracks of these pictures, like the images on a page opposite the author’s note depicting photographs of Jon and Janet growing older, marrying, and having children to bird with. Jon and his mother are light-skinned, and Janet presents Black. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Feathers and friendship make for a good pairing in this gentle ode to appreciating both. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-951836-40-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cameron Kids
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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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