A lovely, simple reminder to pause and notice this life.
A white-bearded grandfather imparts his gentle wisdom to his grandchildren—a girl and a boy—as they meander through a placid green space.
Together, the grandfather and children make note of the bustling natural world. The birds are flying, the dog is running; everyone seems to be in a hurry. The grandfather suggests that the children try another way of being with him, sitting quietly on a bench. The creatures around them respond to their stillness, also taking a moment to rest. As the book draws toward its close, each child is featured in a full-page portrait illustration, gazing out as they note what the quiet and stillness offers to them: “I can think, when I’m quiet. / I can see, when I’m still.” It seems as though the prolific author and illustrator dePaola is speaking directly to readers on these pages, passing on his own insight. His signature illustration style is so simple that it feels fresh. Thick outlines separate individual shapes, and the muted palette epitomizes softness. A single white lotus floats in a small pond on the final page, perhaps paying homage to contemplative practices such as mindfulness that encourage making space for quiet reflection in our busy lives. Children and grandfather have light skin, the girl with straight black hair and the boy with a curly red mop.
A lovely, simple reminder to pause and notice this life. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7754-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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