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WHY EVERGREENS KEEP THEIR LEAVES

Name: WHY EVERGREENS KEEP THEIR LEAVES
Author: Annemarie Guertin
ISBN: 978-1-64170-158-7

by Annemarie Guertin ; illustrated by Helena Pérez García ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2019

Fables are fine, but why eschew facts? (Picture book. 4-7)

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An original pourquoi tale seeks to explain cardinal behavior.

This book does double duty, both explaining why coniferous trees remain green in the wintertime and also explaining why cardinals never migrate south. On the day that a little red bird injures her wing, just before the onset of winter, she decides to seek shelter in the branches of a strong tree. Unfortunately, the deciduous trees she encounters are less than inviting. The birch feels too weak, the oak too miserly, and the maple too self-absorbed to offer her any aid. Distraught, Little Redbird is comforted by a fir tree who, along with a blue spruce and a juniper, promises the bird food and shelter. This act of kindness is rewarded by the Frost Queen, who in turn informs her son Jack (who, like her, presents white and human) to never touch the leaves of the trees that helped Little Redbird. The telling adheres closely to the cadences and conventions of most classic folktales. Bold colors and the striking contrast of the red bird within a green tree are on full display, giving each page a true jolt of visual pop. Alas, this beauty is marred by the inexplicable choice to make the bird female. Only male cardinals are red, a fact completely ignored by this otherwise sweet tale.

Fables are fine, but why eschew facts? (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-64170-158-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Familius

Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW THE FINCH GOT HIS COLORS
by Annemarie Guertin ; illustrated by Helena Pérez García

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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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LOVE FROM THE CRAYONS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 24, 2019

As ephemeral as a valentine.

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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)