Demonstrates the courage of following your heart.
Big feelings call for a big valentine.
Bobby, a tan-skinned youngster with round spectacles, is smitten with his best friend, Eddie, a brown-skinned boy with a gap-toothed smile. Bobby and Eddie are inseparable. They ride bikes, they bake cookies, and for Halloween they even dress up together as a knight and prince. For Valentine’s Day, Bobby wants to show Eddie how much he means to him with a very special card. He has some pretty bold criteria: “The card would have to be colorful…and sparkly…and BIG! As big as Bobby’s heart felt when they were together.” Bobby creates a large heart cutout with many layers of meaning (and many layers of glue). Along the way, he has flashes of insecurity but also strong moments of resolve. “He [has] to believe that Eddie [will] always be by his side.” When the pair meet at school, Eddie has an equally large card for Bobby. In an explosion of hearts, rainbows, butterflies, and sparkles—along with the biggest, most joyful smiles on the two tots’ faces—Bobby and Eddie show the world their true feelings. Woitas expertly charts the quiet but potent dramas that Bobby experiences, while Sonda’s art—which turns delightfully childlike for images of the card—sets a gentle tone. This is a charming queer read-aloud, ideal for Valentine’s Day or at any time of year.
Demonstrates the courage of following your heart. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593659779
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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