bookshelf

THE ALPHABET KEEPER

Name: THE ALPHABET KEEPER
Author: Mary Murphy
ISBN: 0-375-82347-6

by Mary Murphy & illustrated by Mary Murphy ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 11, 2003

bookshelf

A dark-haired lady in a shapeless overcoat keeps the letters of the alphabet caged until they escape into a witty and inventive story. When the Alphabet Keeper cleans the cage that imprisons the letters, out they fly, escaping through the window on the breeze. She chases them, but they elude capture—when she goes after them in a bus, the h flies down and turns the bus into a bush. When she evolves a plan, the t turns her plan into a plant. When the letters “Shout loud!” the c turns loud into a cloud, where they hide. Letters added, subtracted, and reversed contribute to the wordplay that will delight children particularly as they master the trick, for example, of reading “rats” backwards so that it is “star.” In the end, the Alphabet Keeper loses them all, as they change “moo” into “moon” adding “et” to the rock she threw at them, and the rocket carries them to the moon. The illustrations use heavy black line and a few basic colors to create strong, simple, but energetic shapes. Each letter (they are all lower case) has an eye and a mouth, giving them a bit of personality while retaining their essence of letter form. A bright bit of imagination worthy of the old television show The Electric Company. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 11, 2003

ISBN: 0-375-82347-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
WHAT I LIKE MOST
by Mary Murphy ; illustrated by Zhu Cheng-Liang

- BOOK REVIEW
ONLY A TREE KNOWS HOW TO BE A TREE
by Mary Murphy ; illustrated by Mary Murphy

- BOOK REVIEW
MOUSE IS SMALL
by Mary Murphy ; illustrated by Mary Murphy

bookshelf

ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

bookshelf

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
A PERFECT PLACE TO PLAY
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Jim Valeri

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

bookshelf

THE DAY THE CRAYONS MADE FRIENDS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2025

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.

bookshelf

After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.

Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)