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HEALTHY FOODS FROM A TO Z / COMIDA SANA DEL LA A AL LA Z

COMIDA SANA DE LA A AL LA Z

Readers may find themselves hungry when they finish.

Recognition and identification are the goals of this bilingual alphabet book that combines emotional literacy with nutrition.

Photographer Comet presents "faces" made of photo collaged fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, dairy and soy foods and key spices. The multidisciplinary approach encourages children to learn letters and food names in both languages while interpreting each edible expression. While many foods widely recognized across the United States are included, some newer varieties, such as the jícama root and kiwano, are also mentioned. On each page, photos of the food are isolated and identified, and they also form the constituent parts of a face. Foods identified by their English names (huckleberries, honeydew) appear on the left, and those identified by their Spanish names (higo, hierbabuena) are on the right; the appropriate translations appear beneath each word or phrase in parentheses. Some letters are combined on a page, as with Q R (quince, queso) and X Y Z (zucchini, xonocostle). The array of faces is followed by an activities section that encourages children to create their own food-centered faces through a selection of shapes fitted to a face template. A bilingual list of 10 additional projects such as an edible food bouquet and herb growing and healthy-food facts in both languages round out this educational guide.

Readers may find themselves hungry when they finish. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-9834983-1-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Moonstone Press LLC

Review Posted Online: July 18, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012

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THE DAY THE CRAYONS MADE FRIENDS

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.

After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.

Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 3, 2025

ISBN: 9780593622360

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

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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