Glowing and warm, full of life.
Every winter, a mother and child plant a garden in their city apartment.
The child, who has pale skin and wavy dark hair, explains that when it snows, the two of them plant seeds in pots that line the windowsill of their home. Delicate watercolor, colored pencil, and mixed-media paintings show them selecting and planting the “teeny tiny / seeds like freckles / seeds like eyelashes / seeds like the wings of bees.” Meanwhile, outside, blues and purples blanket the warm glow of streetlights, and “the leafless trees are stark and dark. / The cars roll by in slushy rumbles.” One day, the seeds sprout in the yellow glow of light, and they grow fast. Soon, the whole family is eating lettuce leaves that “crunch like / tiny icicles in my mouth,” and “the parsley dusts the potatoes / like green snowflakes.” On each page, winter imagery, both visual and linguistic, is paired with references to growth and vibrancy—a juxtaposition that emphasizes the joy and wonder of life, as well as the loving care that is given and received among both people and plants. The family soon needs more seeds, and the child gets to choose them, plant them, and wait…for spring. Endnotes give instructions on growing a winter garden, and beautiful endpapers feature paintings of plants and leaves. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Glowing and warm, full of life. (further reading) (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780823451012
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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