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JAMMIE DAY!

Name: JAMMIE DAY!
Author: Carrie Snyder
ISBN: 978-1-77147-200-5

by Carrie Snyder ; illustrated by Brooke Kerrigan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2017

Maybe one to share on an actual school Jammie Day, but caregivers may want to be on the alert afterward.

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A middle child takes advantage of adults’ distractedness.

Cliffy has a big brother and a big sister who think they know everything and a little brother and a little sister who know almost nothing. He’s in between, and he knows his own mind. So one morning, when the before-school chaos is in full swing and Cliffy’s harried mother tells him to get dressed, he does “something a little bit funny. A little bit fuzzy.” He announces, “It’s Jammie Day.” Her response is the same as all the other adults’ responses: “Oh?” accompanied by, “She might not have been paying attention.” But his classmates take note, and in future days they too enjoy the perks of wearing jammies to school. And for Cliffy, Jammie Day turns into Jammie Month and Jammie Year, his white-with–rainbow–polka-dot pajamas showing increasing signs of wear. The final, wordless page shows the whole pajama-clad family, but Cliffy’s fib remains unaddressed, so readers may come away with the idea that it’s OK to use adults’ distraction for personal advantage. And really, no matter how many kids in the family or in the class, what adult is truly not going to notice a kid who wears the same thing every day? Cliffy and his family are white; his class is a diverse one.

Maybe one to share on an actual school Jammie Day, but caregivers may want to be on the alert afterward. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-77147-200-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Owlkids Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CANDY CONSPIRACY
by Carrie Snyder ; illustrated by Claudia Dávila

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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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)