A valuable book that makes PPD easier to discuss, showing children they’re not alone.
A child copes with her mother’s postpartum depression in Blackwell’s debut picture book.
Before Andy’s new baby brother arrives, everything in her family seems happy, and her parents are quick to assure her that accidents and mistakes are normal and easily forgivable after a bicycle kerfuffle. Together, the family of three sings, enjoys bath time, reads stories, and snuggles before bed. “But After Baby, nothing feels the same,” Andy explains. Mommy sinks into postpartum depression (PPD), which adult readers may recognize immediately, but for Andy and young readers it feels like an inexplicable and frightening change. After Andy helps comfort the baby, she talks to her parents about her mother’s condition. Mommy compares her emotions to Andy’s frightening bicycle ride: Everything feels chaotic and out of control, but none of that is Andy or the baby’s fault. Although Mommy’s struggle may be scary for children to read about, Blackwell depicts all the family members with sympathy, using Andy’s voice to keep the words simple even though the emotions are complex. Wong’s ink and watercolor illustrations move the story forward, sharply contrasting “before” Mommy’s coloration with a gray-hued Mommy as depression sets in. Colors for the whole family are muted after baby’s arrival until a final image shows possibilities for them moving forward as they are all patient and Mommy works to get better.
A valuable book that makes PPD easier to discuss, showing children they’re not alone.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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