With its companions, music, movement, and language development in four developmentally appropriate packages.
A multicultural cast illustrates a familiar nursery rhyme.
In successive double-page spreads, five round-faced babies each point to the appropriate toe on verso, acting out the rhyme on the opposite page, dressed as pigs, in hooded pink sleepers. “This little piggy” is always on the left while the action text is on the right. This is a vegetarian version of the song; “roast leeks” is substituted for the traditional “roast beef.” Words with musical annotation are printed on the back cover. All the babies (except the White baby who “had none”) are smiling. The light-brown–skinned tot eating roast leeks looks delighted with the meal. The babies’ brightly colored clothing stands out against uncluttered white backgrounds. Equally diverse groups of babies, with at least one wearing glasses, star in the other Baby Board Book titles that publish simultaneously. Sleeper-costumed babies play the parts of cat, cow, moon and dog in Hey Diddle Diddle. The toddler pairs playing Pat-a-Cake (in one case a trio) are interracial; one child appears to have Down syndrome. Ten Little Fingers, often used to quiet young children at the start of storytime, ends with a mixed-race pair and three stuffed animals all ready for the next story, with hands folded “just so.” In all books, children cued as Asian are presented with half-circle eyes instead of dots, as if they are closed.
With its companions, music, movement, and language development in four developmentally appropriate packages. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78628-405-1
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Child's Play
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
An incredible connector text for young readers eager to graduate to weighty conversations about our yesterday, our now, and...
Past and present are quilted together in this innovative overview of black Americans’ triumphs and challenges in the United States.
Alexander’s poetry possesses a straightforward, sophisticated, steady rhythm that, paired with Nelson’s detail-oriented oil paintings, carries readers through generations chronicling “the unforgettable,” “the undeniable,” “the unflappable,” and “the righteous marching ones,” alongside “the unspeakable” events that shape the history of black Americans. The illustrator layers images of black creators, martyrs, athletes, and neighbors onto blank white pages, patterns pages with the bodies of slaves stolen and traded, and extends a memorial to victims of police brutality like Sandra Bland and Michael Brown past the very edges of a double-page spread. Each movement of Alexander’s poem is a tribute to the ingenuity and resilience of black people in the U.S., with textual references to the writings of Gwendolyn Brooks, Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes, and Malcolm X dotting stanzas in explicit recognition and grateful admiration. The book ends with a glossary of the figures acknowledged in the book and an afterword by the author that imprints the refrain “Black. Lives. Matter” into the collective soul of readers, encouraging them, like the cranes present throughout the book, to “keep rising.”
An incredible connector text for young readers eager to graduate to weighty conversations about our yesterday, our now, and our tomorrow. (Picture book/poetry. 6-12)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-78096-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Versify/HMH
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Wow.
The stories of the births of the universe, the planet Earth, and a human child are told in this picture book.
Bauer begins with cosmic nothing: “In the dark / in the deep, deep dark / a speck floated / invisible as thought / weighty as God.” Her powerful words build the story of the creation of the universe, presenting the science in poetic free verse. First, the narrative tells of the creation of stars by the Big Bang, then the explosions of some of those stars, from which dust becomes the matter that coalesces into planets, then the creation of life on Earth: a “lucky planet…neither too far / nor too near…its yellow star…the Sun.” Holmes’ digitally assembled hand-marbled paper-collage illustrations perfectly pair with the text—in fact the words and illustrations become an inseparable whole, as together they both delineate and suggest—the former telling the story and the latter, with their swirling colors suggestive of vast cosmos, contributing the atmosphere. It’s a stunning achievement to present to readers the factual events that created the birth of the universe, the planet Earth, and life on Earth with such an expressive, powerful creativity of words paired with illustrations so evocative of the awe and magic of the cosmos. But then the story goes one brilliant step further and gives the birth of a child the same beginning, the same sense of magic, the same miracle.
Wow. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7883-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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