by Michelle Sumovich ; illustrated by Gracey Zhang ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2023
A warm tale of grief, resilience, trees, and, of course, jam.
“If you ever have a mulberry tree, you’ll learn / there’s nowhere sweeter to sit / than on branches, heavy with warm berries.”
Cycles and regeneration are significant themes in this tale that traces a child’s love of jam and the nearby mulberry tree that produces the fruit for it. A repeating refrain (“If you ever have a mulberry tree…”) gives the text a lilting, poetic quality, while loose and colorful illustrations evoke a warm, rural setting. The text is narrated in second person and addressed to a brown-skinned child who lives with a light-skinned father. The two make jam together, step by step, from adding beads and baubles to the tree (an attempt to keep birds away) to collecting berries that are shared (just a little) with those birds to gathering, crushing, and boiling them, which ultimately results in many jars of delicious jam, just right for sharing with brown-skinned Grandma and a diverse group of neighbors. When a storm knocks down the tree, the child grieves, but when spring comes, the young protagonist finds ways to celebrate at its stump with loved ones. So is this the end? An emphatic no! “If you ever have a mulberry tree, you’ll gasp, / when suddenly silent, shiny leaves burst— / From stems / to shoots / to branches.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A warm tale of grief, resilience, trees, and, of course, jam. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780593112670
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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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...
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
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