An immigrant story without angst and with lots of love and hope
A small, brown boy named Adam loves his new home, a tall building in a big city, but he misses the warmth of the place he is from.
He asks his parents for stories from that place, and he fills his walls with drawings of the animals from the stories: elephant and rhino and lion. When the cold ices his apartment-building windows, he draws these animals with his finger in the frost. Adam is delighted with his first glimpse of snow, and when he joins the gaggle of children making a snowman, he encourages them to make snow rhinos and elephants, which they all do. (There’s a bit of a time disconnect when Adam starts at his new school after a few days “when the snowy world had melted,” and the children are in sweatshirts and the school garden is in bright green leaf.) Adam’s teacher gives him seeds to take home, and he and his friends plant them in window boxes, roof pots, and bare patches of the city. The watercolor images are simple and clear, depicting a generic city, an ethnic mix of children, plants and flowers bursting with gentle color. The story leans toward sentimental rather than didactic, and the pleasant calm of the text reflects the geometric pattern of a storybook urban landscape.
An immigrant story without angst and with lots of love and hope . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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