Untrammeled and honest.
A busy mother and child stay connected with notes as an important separation approaches in Sher and Leng’s debut collaboration.
Raiding the fridge for breakfast before school, brown-skinned Skip finds a sticky note from pale-skinned Mom, who has apparently already left, on the door: “Let’s have one more movie night before you go.” When Mom returns, a similar note awaits her in reply: “I’m not going. Not EVER!” Over the next few days, notes continue appearing from Mom as she readies Skip for an upcoming departure to sleepover camp, as well as notes with replies from Skip, who has no intention of attending camp. Alongside reminders for each other about buying milk, trips to the laundromat, and a visit from Mimsy (grandma), the family’s notes also contain a gentle tug of war as Skip adamantly insists that camp is out of the question and Mom patiently counters each concern. Sher manages to capture the familiar anxiety of a first-time camper as well as the quiet persistence of a parent’s reassurance as these succinct but affecting messages move steadily from unease to confidence. The sticky notes themselves move in and out of the limelight with each page turn as Leng’s breathy illustrations exude the easy energy of the characters while bringing their deceptively simple notes to full emotional life. The open ambiguity of the illustrations will allow readers to imagine Skip as either Mom’s biracial biological child or her adoptive child of color.
Untrammeled and honest. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-483-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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