Don’t be fooled by the title—this delightful offering is a welcome departure from stories about family groupings. Instead, the rhyming verse details the way families act and the things that they do together. “Some families dress up / to go do the town. / And others are happy / just hanging around.” From the way they dress and eat, to where they live and the things they have, Dotlich’s (When Riddles Come Rumbling: Poems to Ponder, not reviewed, etc.) verses are a fun look at all the ways families are alike and different the world over. But it is the perfect combination of story and illustration that truly make this one to own. Featuring human as well as animal families, Lyon’s (An Alligator Ate My Brother, not reviewed, etc.) marvelous cartoon drawings are filled with detail, bright color, and wonderful facial expression. Frogs catching flies illustrate families who grab a quick bite to eat, while a Japanese mother and daughter and a cowboy and his son are pictured for families who have different styles. By carefully including different ethnicities, races, and family groupings, Dotlich insures that a child looking at these pictures will certainly see a family like his or her own. A great start to some comparisons of their own. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56397-916-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
This heavily earnest celebration of multi-ethnicity combines full-bleed paintings of smiling children, viewed through a golden haze dancing, playing, planting seedlings, and the like, with a hyperbolic, disconnected text—``Dark as leopard spots, light as sand,/Children buzz with laughter that kisses our land...''— printed in wavy lines. Literal-minded readers may have trouble with the author's premise, that ``Children come in all the colors of the earth and sky and sea'' (green? blue?), and most of the children here, though of diverse and mixed racial ancestry, wear shorts and T-shirts and seem to be about the same age. Hamanaka has chosen a worthy theme, but she develops it without the humor or imagination that animates her Screen of Frogs (1993). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11131-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
There’s always tomorrow.
A lyrical message of perseverance and optimism.
The text uses direct address, which the title- and final-page illustrations suggest comes from an adult voice, to offer inspiration and encouragement. The opening spreads reads, “Tonight as you sleep, a new day stirs. / Each kiss good night is a wish for tomorrow,” as the accompanying art depicts a child with black hair and light skin asleep in a bed that’s fantastically situated in a stylized landscape of buildings, overpasses, and roadways. The effect is dreamlike, in contrast with the next illustration, of a child of color walking through a field and blowing dandelion fluff at sunrise. Until the last spread, each child depicted in a range of settings is solitary. Some visual metaphors falter in terms of credibility, as in the case of a white-appearing child using a wheelchair in an Antarctic ice cave strewn with obstacles, as the text reads “you’ll explore the world, only feeling lost in your imagination.” Others are oblique in attempted connections between text and art. How does a picture of a pale-skinned, black-haired child on a bridge in the rain evoke “first moments that will dance with you”? But the image of a child with pink skin and brown hair scaling a wall as text reads “there will be injustice that will challenge you, and it will surprise you how brave you can be” is clearer.
There’s always tomorrow. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-101-99437-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
