A great rainy-day read-aloud complete with built-in craft ideas.
“Glitter, glitter everywhere” in a rhyming celebration of sparkles to share!
The young protagonist, who wears pigtails and a handmade crown, spies a package left on the doorstep by the letter carrier. A shimmering tag hints at sparkly contents. The child opens up the box and dashes glitter on the crown, spilling sprinkles onto the table and floor. Entranced, the child goes to their room, eager to brighten the walls, the mirror, and the bedspread. Soon, colorful rays of glitter spray across the page, as the celebration accelerates until our shiny star realizes the glitter has covered everything in a rainbow quilt—including the child and their cat! A realization about the value of creativity restores balance…for now; the final spread hints at a sequel with the arrival of a new package on the doorstep. Young artists will delight in the creative joy the protagonist displays but will appreciate that even sparkly glitter must be restrained sometimes. The drawn, cut-paper, and digitally colored illustrations add texture and depth to the story, transitioning from simple colors against black-and-white backgrounds to splashes of frenetic color and then back again. Despite a few meter missteps (“Are your walls asking for glitz? / Looking for more flashy bits? / Time for puttin’ on the ritz?”), the jaunty text makes for a lively read-aloud, complete with the repeatable, titular refrain, “Just add glitter!” The protagonist has tan skin and straight, black hair.
A great rainy-day read-aloud complete with built-in craft ideas. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0967-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning.
Children realize their dreams one step at a time in this story about growth mindset.
A child crashes and damages a new bicycle on a dark, rainy day. Attempting a wheelie, the novice cyclist falls onto the sidewalk, grimacing, and, having internalized this setback as failure, vows to never ride again but to “walk…forever.” Then the unnamed protagonist happens upon a glowing orb in the forest, a “thought rearranger-er”—a luminous pink fairy called the Magical Yet. This Yet reminds the child of past accomplishments and encourages perseverance. The second-person rhyming couplets remind readers that mistakes are part of learning and that with patience and effort, children can achieve. Readers see the protagonist learn to ride the bike before a flash-forward shows the child as a capable college graduate confidently designing a sleek new bike. This book shines with diversity: racial, ethnic, ability, and gender. The gender-indeterminate protagonist has light brown skin and exuberant curly locks; Amid the bustling secondary cast, one child uses a prosthesis, and another wears hijab. At no point in the text is the Yet defined as a metaphor for a growth mindset; adults reading with younger children will likely need to clarify this abstract lesson. The artwork is powerful and detailed—pay special attention to the endpapers that progress to show the Yet at work.
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-02562-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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