A realistic, poignant, and affirming family portrait.
Mama loves her child—even on “her bluest days.”
The young narrator lives in a house by the sea with a cat and with Baba and Mama—a devoted parent who lives with bipolar disorder. Like the moon, Mama is a guiding light in the narrator’s life, but she also waxes and wanes, shifting from depression to mania. At times, she struggles to get out of bed; she even misses the protagonist’s school concert. Not much of Mama’s mania is depicted, but at one point, she must spend time in the hospital. Luckily, steadfast Baba is there to keep the youngster grounded. Grigni’s rhyming text is gentle and honest, validating the child’s feelings of abandonment, helplessness, and anger while also making it clear that Mama’s actions aren’t the result of a moral failing or a lack of love. Inspired metaphors help drive home the book’s messages, such as “a heavy fog that hangs over her head,” with images of the child floating through the sky, encircled by a waxing moon. Tempering the difficult subject matter, the artwork has a graphic novel feel, with characters speaking in speech bubbles. In keeping with the lunar theme, hues of purple and blue dominate the pages. Mama is light-skinned, while Baba and the narrator are brown-skinned; some may read Mama and Baba as a queer couple.
A realistic, poignant, and affirming family portrait. (resources, author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781250824295
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children.
Interior decorator and TV personality Gaines invites readers to open their eyes and exercise their imaginations.
There’s a world to be explored out there—and only children can really take part. What does “looking for wonder” entail? Slowing down and looking up, around, and everywhere. At the outset, a group of eager, racially diverse young friends—including one who uses a wheelchair—are fully prepared for a grand adventure. They offer tips about how and where to look: Why, there’s a “grand parade” of marching ants! And, these kids add, perspective is key. A rainy day might signal gloom to some, but to those filled with wonder, showers bring “magic puddles for play”; a forest is “an enchanted world,” the ocean conceals “a spectacular city,” and the night sky boasts “extraordinary sights.” The takeaway: “Wonder is never in short supply.” It’s a robust, empowering message, as is the exhortation to “keep your mind open, and let curiosity guide the way.” Youngsters are also advised to share their discoveries. The upbeat narrative is delivered in clunky verse, but the colorful cartoonish illustrations brimming with activity and good cheer (including some adorable anthropomorphized animals in the backgrounds) make up for the textual lapses and should motivate readers to embark on their own “wonder explorations.”
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781400247417
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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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