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WHERE DID YOU GO TODAY?

From the Child's Play Library series

Playground fun becomes much more through the eyes of a child in this simple story.

A young child recounts a series of playful endeavors to an adult companion as they walk hand in hand through a city.

The story follows the narrator’s journey around various playground activities and provides a window into a child’s creativity. In the retelling of the day, swinging on a swingset becomes flying, a slide becomes a snowy mountainside, a pond becomes an ocean, and a tunnel becomes a dark cave. Especially sweet is the image of the imagined jungle animals following the pair home from the park as the child enjoys a piggyback ride. Relationships between characters are left open to interpretation. The child waves goodbye to the adult from the park and is embraced by someone new, maybe a parent or caregiver. Duke’s line drawings are set against simple, often abstract backgrounds in cool tones. The illustrations’ muted color palette paired with the minimalist prose gives the story a subdued feeling even though it centers on play and imagination. Readers don’t learn many details about the characters in this story, but children of color, a child who uses a wheelchair, and an adult with a hearing aid are depicted. The protagonist has straight, black hair and light-brown skin; the adult companion has somewhat darker-brown skin, and the adult at home presents white.

Playground fun becomes much more through the eyes of a child in this simple story. (Picture book. 1-4)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-78628-201-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Child's Play

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019

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I YOGA YOU

Mindfully executed (mostly).

In this rhyming board book, 13 cheerful children move through a day of yoga postures, from a morning sun salutation to a bedtime “sleeping pose.”

The opening lines mirror the cadence of the old song “Skinnamarink”: “I love you in the morning / when you salute the sun. // I love you when you stretch out straight. / Our day has now begun!” Unfortunately, the rhyme and scansion deteriorate as the verse continues. “I love you in the garden / when we say hello to plants and trees” is fine, but it’s followed by the tortured “I love you when you make me laugh— / you’re full of such sillies,” and rhyming “down” with “proud” is a huge stretch. Still, the 13 children shown incorporating yoga into everyday play are a diverse bunch. The adults helping the children dress, garden, play, meditate, fly, manage emotions, and explore are equally varied in terms of age and race, though there are no characters with visible disabilities. Any book lover will appreciate the penultimate stanza: “I love you / when we read book… / after book… / after book until the end of the day.” The final line abandons the meter completely. “It is time for bed, sleepyhead. / Namaste.” The last spread labels the poses modeled by each of the children. Clear backgrounds, a large clean type, and thick pages turn this simple paean to love into a useful instruction manual for the youngest yogis.

Mindfully executed (mostly). (Board book. 1-4)

Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5344-5489-7

Page Count: 26

Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

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LOVE YOU MORE

It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt.

A love song from parents to their child.

This title will seem quite similar to the many others about parents’ deep love for their children. The text is wholly composed of first-person declarations of parental love, and it’s juxtaposed with illustrations of the child with one or both parents. It’s not always clear who the “I” speaking is, and there are a few pages that instead use “we.” Most sentences begin with “I love you more” phrasing to communicate that nothing could undermine parental love: “I love you more than all the sleepless nights…and all the early, tired mornings.” The accompanying pictures depict the child as a baby with weary parents. Later spreads show the child growing up, and the phrasing shifts away from the challenges of parenting to its joys and to attempts to quantify love: “I love you more than all the blades of grass at the park…and all the soccer that we played.” Throughout, Bell’s illustrations use pastel tones and soft visual texture to depict cozy, wholesome scenes that are largely redundant of the straightforward, warm text. They feature a brown-haired family with a mother, father, and child, who all appear to be white (though the father has skin that’s a shade darker than the others’).

It’s nothing new, but it’s also clearly heartfelt. (Picture book. 2-4)

Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4998-0652-6

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Little Bee Books

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018

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