A child’s question to his grandma opens a window to another time and place in this intimate, intergenerational conversation. Grandma answers young Jamal’s question about whether she was ever a little girl by going back even further than that, first to when she was the tenth “baby on the way” for a rural family, then, after her birth, describing how she was carried around the house in “takin’ up ceremonies” (“somethin’ probably passed down from slavery times. People don’t do that no more”), and as the “lap baby,” how she displaced the next eldest sib to the status of “knee baby.” Using a palette of pale, thickly brushed blues and greens to give his flat-perspective scenes a subdued tone, Qualls alternates between Grandma’s spacious-looking urban kitchen and the more crowded country setting, where family and neighbors gather round to provide help following the birth; his figures, young and old, bear quiet, reflective expressions in keeping with the general tone. In the end, suggesting that Jamal may one day himself be asked the same question, Grandma offers to tell him about when he was the baby on the way—and what young listeners won’t want to hear their own versions of that story? (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2005
ISBN: 0-374-37361-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
Long-winded but uplifting nonetheless.
Comedian, singer, and YouTube star Rainbow urges readers not to let others dim their light.
Young Randy Rainbow lives life out loud. While his classmates wear “dull blue jeans and drab T-shirts,” he sports “brightly colored three-piece suits and sparkly bow ties,” paints his nails, and listens to Broadway albums. After being called a “weirdo” at school, he tries to tamp down his sparkly side. While helping his grandmother sort through some of her old belongings, he stumbles across a pair of magical cat-eye glasses that, according to Nanny, allow whoever puts them on to “be anything and anywhere [they] want.” After rocking the glasses at school and a number of other locations, Randy becomes popular and confident, but when he breaks them on the way to a birthday party, he’s despondent. Nanny reveals that the glasses never had any powers; the magic was in Randy all along. While the message about being true to oneself is an important one, the unevenly paced, wordy text often tells more than it shows. At times it feels as though the author’s trying to pad out a somewhat thin story; multiple examples of Randy sporting his new specs in a variety of scenarios drag quite a bit. Swirls of pink feature prominently in MacGibbon’s cartoon illustrations. Randy and Nanny are pale-skinned; hints in the text suggest that they may be Jewish.
Long-winded but uplifting nonetheless. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781250900777
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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