A charming story that will encourage little readers to MOVE!
Dancer and choreographer Mabuse, best known for performing on the British reality TV series Strictly Come Dancing, teaches kids how to do the jive.
The story opens with a racially diverse group of children lined up outside Mrs. Oti’s dance studio, waiting for their first lesson. Mrs. Oti, a Black woman, presumably a stand-in for Mabuse, greets them happily. First, it’s time to warm up. Hardy’s bright, expressive illustrations depict the children as they do stretches, jumping jacks, and more. Then it’s time to learn the jive. Mrs. Oti invites her students—and readers—to lift their hands up, then put them down, then to jump to the left and then to the right. The marvelous dancers make plenty of mistakes that add just the right amount of adorable hilarity—and will reassure uncertain little dancers that it’s OK to mess up. One child forgets her steps as she stares at her shoes. Another dance pupil cannot remember which direction he’s going. With kindness and wit, Mrs. Oti always reins the class back in and keeps everyone in step. A green parrot flies into the room, inspiring Mrs. Oti to tell the kids to grab some feathers from the dress-up box, flap their arms, and do the bird jive! Filled with arrows and text instructions, this book will make for a very active storytime. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A charming story that will encourage little readers to MOVE! (more information on Mabuse and the jive, QR code linking to a step-by-step tutorial of the jive) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2500-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick Entertainment
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning.
Children realize their dreams one step at a time in this story about growth mindset.
A child crashes and damages a new bicycle on a dark, rainy day. Attempting a wheelie, the novice cyclist falls onto the sidewalk, grimacing, and, having internalized this setback as failure, vows to never ride again but to “walk…forever.” Then the unnamed protagonist happens upon a glowing orb in the forest, a “thought rearranger-er”—a luminous pink fairy called the Magical Yet. This Yet reminds the child of past accomplishments and encourages perseverance. The second-person rhyming couplets remind readers that mistakes are part of learning and that with patience and effort, children can achieve. Readers see the protagonist learn to ride the bike before a flash-forward shows the child as a capable college graduate confidently designing a sleek new bike. This book shines with diversity: racial, ethnic, ability, and gender. The gender-indeterminate protagonist has light brown skin and exuberant curly locks; Amid the bustling secondary cast, one child uses a prosthesis, and another wears hijab. At no point in the text is the Yet defined as a metaphor for a growth mindset; adults reading with younger children will likely need to clarify this abstract lesson. The artwork is powerful and detailed—pay special attention to the endpapers that progress to show the Yet at work.
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-02562-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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