A fun food counting book.
The aromas of homemade food sneak their way across an entire multicultural neighborhood as growling bellies wait to be filled with…dumplings!
Recipes from Nigeria, Syria, China, Russia, Mexico, and more reveal tasty fillings tucked into doughs that are boiled, steamed, fried, and baked. There are potato-filled samosas and gyoza bursting with ground pork, bourekas stuffed with potatoes and cheese and shish barak swimming in yogurt soup. Count along as 10 scrumptious dumplings formed by 10 pairs of loving hands in 10 busy kitchens are placed on 10 different plates. The block party is ready to start—a dumpling picnic for all! “We eat and laugh and gather round, / We party till the sun goes down.” Sriram’s simple rhyming story celebrating the unifying magic of food pairs well with the childlike naïveté of de Antuñano’s inclusive and diverse gouache illustrations. Without skipping a beat, she folds words for both dumplings and family members and their respective languages into her couplets. However, the appended recipe for tamales includes a fatal typo, to be corrected in subsequent printings. Instead of calling for dried masa flour or corn flour (two words), the recipe lists cornstarch/cornflour (the British term for cornstarch) which will produce a gravy/sludge and not a dough. Backmatter includes a map of food origins, a glossary of kinship terms, and recipes for each type of dumpling. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A fun food counting book. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64686-281-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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
BOOK REVIEW
Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings.
The Crayons head back to class in this latest series entry.
Daywalt’s expository text lays out the basics as various Crayons wave goodbye to the beach, choose a first-day outfit, greet old friends, and make new ones. As in previous outings, the perennially droll illustrations and hand-lettered Crayon-speak drive the humor. The ever wrapperless Peach, opining, “What am I going to wear?” surveys three options: top hat and tails, a chef’s toque and apron, and a Santa suit. New friends Chunky Toddler Crayon (who’s missing a bite-sized bit of their blue point) and Husky Toddler Crayon speculate excitedly on their common last name: “I wonder if we’re related!” White Crayon, all but disappearing against the page’s copious white space, sits cross-legged reading a copy of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. And Yellow and Orange, notable for their previous existential argument about the color of the sun, find agreement in science class: Jupiter, clearly, is yellow AND orange. Everybody’s excited about art class—“Even if they make a mess. Actually…ESPECIALLY if they make a mess!” Here, a spread of crayoned doodles of butterflies, hearts, and stars is followed by one with fulsome scribbles. Fans of previous outings will spot cameos from Glow in the Dark and yellow-caped Esteban (the Crayon formerly known as Pea Green). (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780593621110
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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