No classroom clichés here. Rather, creativity and inspired teaching in full bloom.
Daydreams on the first day of school lead to a happy ending thanks to a refreshingly responsive teacher.
Suppressing anxiety, Martin’s mind goes a mile a minute, associations flowing freely. The teacher’s pink cheeks make him think of Mum Mum, a thought that leads the young boy to recall her beloved smile—“as wide as the river.” Water is fertile territory for a range of precisely described images and emotions, communicated with aurally pleasing words subtly constructed as free verse. Recalling the time his mother had borrowed his language about lightning for her own poem, he ponders her explanation that poetry helps “you put things into words that are painful or / wonderful or that you just don’t understand. / …they’re like kisses, tiny little / nothings that mean so much!” When the teacher interrupts his reverie by asking if he’s on the moon and whom he’s blowing kisses to, a pebble from the river gives him the courage to share his thoughts. The teachable moment involves the class drawing kisses (x’s) on the board along with the first letter of their names, the first step towards friendship. Large, round heads, recurring moons and a parting circular view underscore Martin’s marvelous interior world, as do the cheerfully surreal scenes of raining flowers and a smiling sky.
No classroom clichés here. Rather, creativity and inspired teaching in full bloom. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-92697-316-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
Pedestrian.
Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.
Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up.
In Murray’s children’s debut, when a gingerbread man made by schoolchildren gets left behind at recess, he decides he has to find his class: “I’ll run and I’ll run, / As fast as I can. / I can catch them! I’m their / Gingerbread Man!”
And so begins his rollicking rhyming adventure as he runs, limps, slides and skips his way through the school, guided on his way by the friendly teachers he meets. Flattened by a volleyball near the gym, he gets his broken toe fixed by the kindly nurse and then slides down the railing into the art teacher’s lunch. Then it’s off to the principal’s office, where he takes a spin in her chair before she arrives. “The children you mentioned just left you to cool. / They’re hanging these posters of you through the school.” The principal takes him back to the classroom, where the children all welcome him back. The book’s comic-book layout suits the elementary-school tour that this is, while Lowery’s cartoon artwork fits the folktale theme. Created with pencil, screen printing and digital color, the simple illustrations give preschoolers a taste of what school will be like. While the Gingerbread Man is wonderfully expressive, though, the rather cookie-cutter teachers could use a little more life.
Teachers looking for a new way to start off the school year will eat this one up. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25052-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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