An unusual and inventive selection for beginning tough conversations with young readers.
A child “straight from the center of the universe” faces a small-minded world.
The dark-skinned young narrator, wearing a striped woolen hat, fields the same question over and over: “Where are you from?” Words in different typefaces surround the child on the opening spread, and the protagonist pulls on the strings on the hat, seemingly for protection. The child wonders, “How am I supposed to respond?” Tumbling through a door in the clouds into a vast galaxy, the child declares, “I’m from the interiors of collapsing stars” and “the iridescent glow of a nebula.” The protagonist comes from the moons of Saturn and Pluto, from redwood trees and ocean tides, from voyagers and artists. The child continues even as others persist with the same question, which really means, “Why is your skin that color?” and “Why does your hair look like that?” But the child counters: “You see skin and I see supernovas.” Lesnie’s dazzlingly vivid illustrations immerse the child in a rich imaginative world, depicting lush green trees, rainbow nebulae, and luminous golden lanterns on dark water, in stark contrast to the more muted colors of the child’s real, harassed life. Though Collins’ reflective text doesn’t offer a simple resolution, the child nevertheless has the last, definitive words to settle the issue.
An unusual and inventive selection for beginning tough conversations with young readers. (a note from the creators) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781536232738
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...
Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.
The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.
While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934133-57-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mackinac Island Press
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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