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THE NOISY CLASSROOM

Name: THE NOISY CLASSROOM
Author: Angela Shanté
ISBN: 978-1-5132-6292-5

by Angela Shanté ; illustrated by Alison Hawkins ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2020

A noisy classroom turns out to be a delightful place to learn.

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Unconventional methods can help create a curious lifelong learner.

Shanté’s debut picture book focuses on a young child who is worried about entering the third grade. The second grade class is expected to be silent in the hallway, and their classroom is quiet and orderly. The narrator is apprehensive about entering Ms. Johnson’s “noisy” classroom, where the students listen to music! Taking a cue from Judith Viorst’s Alexander, the narrator tells Ma and Pa that having a job in Antarctica would be better than entering Ms. Johnson’s classroom and spends the summer preparing for the move. But when the time comes and third grade starts, the narrator finds that Ms. Johnson’s unconventional classroom, where lessons feel like play, isn’t so bad after all. Although the narrative text is filtered through this anxious child’s point of view, readers are likely to wonder why on earth this kid is so nervous about having a teacher who is manifestly so much more fun than their current one, but it does accurately represent a young child’s nervousness about change. Caregivers who are hoping to start a conversation on managing classroom fears would find this book a great place to start. Hawkins depicts a diverse school; the brown-skinned narrator is biracial and bicultural, with a Caribbean dad and Latinx mom. Both the second grade teacher and Ms. Johnson present black.

A noisy classroom turns out to be a delightful place to learn. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: May 5, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5132-6292-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: West Margin Press

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE UNBOXING OF A BLACK GIRL
by Angela Shanté

- BOOK REVIEW
WHEN MY COUSINS COME TO TOWN
by Angela Shanté ; illustrated by Keisha Morris

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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IMANI'S MOON

by JaNay Brown-Wood ; illustrated by Hazel Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 14, 2014

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...

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Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.

The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)