A DAY IN CANADA

Name: A DAY IN CANADA
Author: Per-Henrik Gürth
ISBN: 978-1-77138-125-3

by Per-Henrik Gürth ; illustrated by Per-Henrik Gürth ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2015

Simple details and animal characters will attract the youngest lapsitters, who may want to try some of the activities...

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Gürth adds to his series of books about Canada with this look at time.

Beginning in Newfoundland and Labrador and moving west through a single day, readers greet the sun at 6 a.m. and then are introduced to a single location and activity for each of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories (a map is provided on the endpapers). A bull moose pedals along Confederation Trail at 8:30 a.m. A bit later, a moose calf dances a jig at the Miramichi Folk Festival. The text is framed in a series of gentle imperatives: Explore an old fort, have a picnic, smell the flowers in Assiniboine Park, kayak Lake Louise, hike, pan for gold, barbecue on the beach. Many of these can be done almost any place, though two particularly tempting activities are difficult to do just anywhere: sleep beneath the northern lights and “2:45 p.m. / Slide down the Athabasca Sand Dunes.” An old-fashioned alarm clock in the bottom left corner displays each time in whole hours and 15-minute increments. Gürth’s digital illustrations feature thick black outlines filled with brilliant colors.

Simple details and animal characters will attract the youngest lapsitters, who may want to try some of the activities depicted, even if they can’t do them in the specific Canadian environs described. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-77138-125-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Kids Can

Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
TOGETHER FOREVER
by Nicole Watts & illustrated by Per-Henrik Gürth

- BOOK REVIEW
HOCKEY OPPOSITES
by Yvette Ghione & illustrated by Per-Henrik Gürth

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CHICKA CHICKA HO HO HO

From the Chicka Chicka Book series

by William Boniface ; illustrated by Julien Chung ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2024

A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.

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A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book.

The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept—shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.

A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024

ISBN: 9781665954761

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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...

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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)