All bodies are absolutely good bodies; unfortunately, not all books on the subject are.
Told in rhyme, this book celebrates body parts such as hands, eyes, and noses.
“I love hands. Hands that are white and hands that are brown. / Freckles mean sunshine has sent kisses down,” begins this simple story of body acceptance. Barkla’s well-meaning effort describes a range of body parts and offers examples of how they might appear. Children with a variety of skin tones, hair textures, facial expressions, and racial presentations fill alternating pages. Though an effort is made to uplift marginalized attributes, the messaging is shallow and keeps conventional characteristics squarely in the center. Illustrator Salcedo’s art places a White-presenting child with mostly normative features as the protagonist, with non-normative bodies coming across as an afterthought. For example, in the spread celebrating “giant legs, tiny legs, hairy or smooth,” Barkla writes that “some legs are really quick, others don’t move.” An accompanying image shows a yoga-posing child wearing a prosthetic leg; as the joints reveal, the leg is certainly in motion. Meanwhile, of the five other kids rendered in the spread, four are slender and pale-skinned; the child who uses a wheelchair elsewhere in the book is nowhere to be seen. Readers looking for an accessible, body-positive picture book will find Tyler Feder’s Bodies Are Cool (2021) to be an excellent choice. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
All bodies are absolutely good bodies; unfortunately, not all books on the subject are. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: July 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-76050-393-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Hare/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.
A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book.
The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept—shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.
A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665954761
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color.
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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