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GOD'S LITTLE OCEANOGRAPHER

Name: GOD'S LITTLE OCEANOGRAPHER
Author: Tina Cho
ISBN: 9780593579435

From the Big Adventures for Growing Minds series

by Tina Cho ; illustrated by Marta Álvarez Miguéns ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 24, 2025

For curious young Christians eager to explore the deepest depths of the ocean.

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Bible passages and scientific facts combine to celebrate the wonders of God’s oceans.

Readers follow along as an East Asian child with short black hair swims, explores the shore, and pilots a yellow submersible. Cho covers the five oceans and why they’re salty, waves and currents, oceanic zones, sea creatures such as whale sharks and elephant seals, the benefits humans gain from the oceans, and our responsibility to protect them. The main text (formatted to look like verse, though it doesn’t rhyme) presents major ideas, with bolded, colored text indicating animals to find or drawing connections between the subject matter and the religious theme. When describing how wildlife in the “midnight zone” finds food without light, for instance, Cho explains that “God sees these creatures, / just as He sees you.” Biblical passages from Genesis, Proverbs, Psalms, Romans, and the Book of Habakkuk deepen the theme or loosely touch on it. Facts in a smaller font are scattered about, distinguished from the Bible verses only by font color. The cartoonish illustrations bring the wonders of the ocean to life for young children, highlighting both well-known and seldom-seen creatures. Humans are racially diverse; one child uses a wheelchair.

For curious young Christians eager to explore the deepest depths of the ocean. (Religious/informational picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: June 24, 2025

ISBN: 9780593579435

Page Count: 40

Publisher: WaterBrook

Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS FICTION | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE OTHER SIDE OF TOMORROW
by Tina Cho ; illustrated by Deb JJ Lee

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

PETE THE CAT'S 12 GROOVY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

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PETE THE CAT'S 12 GROOVY DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

by James Dean ; illustrated by James Dean ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 2018

Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among

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Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.

If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”

Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)