For places where the first-grade shelves are particularly thin.
The traditional song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” gets a school makeover as readers follow a cheery narrator through the first 12 days of first grade.
“On the first day of first grade / I had fun right away // laughing and learning all day!” In these first two spreads, Jennings shows the child, who has brown skin and a cloud of dark-brown hair, entering the schoolyard with a diverse array of classmates and settling in. In the backgrounds, caregivers, including a woman in hijab, stand at the fence and kids hang things on hooks in the back of the room. Each new day sees the child and their friends enjoying new things, previous days’ activities repeated in the verses each time so that those listening will soon be chiming in. The child helps in the classroom, checks out books from the library, plants seeds, practices telling time and counting money, leads the line, performs in a play, shows off a picture of their pet bunny, and does activities in gym, music, and art classes. The Photoshop-and-watercolor illustrations portray adorable and engaged kids having fun while learning with friends. But while the song and topic are the same, this doesn’t come close to touching either the hysterical visuals or great rhythm of Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003).
For places where the first-grade shelves are particularly thin. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-266851-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Laugh-out-loud fun for all.
Hilarious complications ensue when Nanette’s mom gives her the responsibility of buying the family baguette.
She sets out on her errand and encounters lots of distractions along the way as she meets and greets Georgette, Suzette, Bret with his clarinet, Mr. Barnett and his pet, Antoinette. But she remembers her mission and buys the baguette from Juliette the baker. And oh, it is a wonderful large, warm, aromatic hunk of bread, so Nanette takes a taste and another and more—until there is nothing left. Maybe she needs to take a jet to Tibet. But she faces her mother and finds understanding, tenderness, and a surprise twist. Willems is at his outlandish best with line after line of “ettes” and their absurd rhymes, all the while demonstrating a deep knowledge of children’s thought processes. Nanette and the entire cast of characters are bright green frogs with very large round eyes, heavily outlined in black and clad in eccentric clothing and hats. A highly detailed village constructed of cardboard forms the background for Nanette’s adventures. Her every emotion explodes all over the pages in wildly expressive, colorful vignettes and an eye-popping use of emphatic display type. The endpapers follow the fate of the baguette from fresh and whole to chewed and gone. Demands for encores will surely follow.
Laugh-out-loud fun for all. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2286-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Aspiring astronauts will be starstruck.
Personable planets and animated astronomical bodies introduce themselves in spirited verse.
Dawnay presents 10 poems of regular four-beat rhyming couplets (iambs and anapests), with a fact-filled page after each chapter. In proud, sometimes sassy voices, personified celestial bodies directly address readers; among them, the characters we meet are the moon, Earth, the entire solar system, the four “rocky” terrestrial planets, the four gas giants, the “remnants” (asteroids, meteoroids, comets, debris), the Milky Way, the sun, the five dwarf planets (Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris), and finally a nebula cloud, a “nursery” for new planetary bodies. The bright, cheerful illustrations stylize the astral objects. Stars have sharp points; the nebula beams. Eyebrows and lashes adorn some eyes, while others are round or almond-shaped. Usually the heavenly bodies are simply round faces, but an occasional hand or tongue protrudes. Colors can convey astronomical information: Saturated blues suggest the depths of space or the gaseous ice giants; red, the iron of Mars or hot meteors (but cold Jupiter is also red); green, Earth’s vegetation. These versified vehicles for information are impressively precise and enlightening.
Aspiring astronauts will be starstruck. (further reading) (Nonfiction. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781419779688
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Magic Cat
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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