A gentle, helpful tool for cultivating kid mindfulness.
Yoga instructor Verde and illustrator Reynolds reunite (I Am Yoga, 2015) in this introduction to mindfulness featuring a worried child who focuses on the moment.
Feeling “like a boat with no anchor,” the child announces, “there are times when I worry about what might happen next and what happened before.” Taking a moment to breathe, become grounded, centered, and aware of “the here and the now,” the child’s thoughts settle, and “worries gently pop and disappear.” Through acts of kindness, connecting to nature, and using the senses, the child now feels anchored and at peace within the moment. The spare, seemingly hand-lettered, first-person text and sprightly illustrations, executed in ink, gouache, watercolor, and tea, stand out against pristine white backgrounds. Drawn in loose, black outlines and then washed with rainbow hues, the somewhat androgynous child resembles a young yogi with black hair, light-brown skin, bare feet, turtleneck, cropped pants, and a hat and necklace appropriately adorned with peace symbols. Vignettes of the child in a balance pose, feeding birds, and meditating beneath a tree (magically sprouting from fallen birdseed) reinforce messages of kindness, compassion, and self-awareness as worry melts into bliss. A guided-meditation exercise offers interactive opportunities for readers to create their own mindful time.
A gentle, helpful tool for cultivating kid mindfulness. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-9)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2701-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it.
Former National Youth Poet Laureate Gorman invites girls to raise their voices and make a difference.
“Today, we finally have a say,” proclaims the first-person plural narration as three girls (one presents Black, another is brown-skinned, and the third is light-skinned) pass one another marshmallows on a stick around a campfire. In Wise’s textured, almost three-dimensional illustrations, the trio traverse fantastical, often abstract landscapes, playing, demonstrating, eating, and even flying, while confident rhymes sing their praises and celebrate collective female victories. The phrase “LIBERATION. FREEDOM. RESPECT” appears on a protest sign that bookends their journey. Simple and accessible, the rhythmic visual storytelling presents an optimistic vision of young people working toward a better world. Sometimes family members or other diverse comrades surround the girls, emphasizing that power comes from community. Gorman is careful to specify that “some of us go by she / And some of us go by they.” She affirms, too, that each person is “a different shape and size,” though the art doesn’t show much variation in body type. Characters also vary in ability. Real-life figures emerge as the girls dream of past luminaries such as author Octavia Butler and activist Marsha P. Johnson, along with present-day role models including poet and journalist Plestia Alaqad and athlete Sha’carri Richardson; silhouettes stand in for heroines as yet unknown. Imagining that “we are where change is going” is hopeful indeed.
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593624180
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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