Lovely.
In this true story by a young ballerina of color, Charlotte’s magical Christmas season is prolonged when she performs in The Nutcracker.
Charlotte Nebres loves ballet, both dancing in class and going to the theater to watch the ballet. One night, she sees a brown-skinned ballerina on stage, and this helps her imagine herself on stage too. In class, she practices and practices, hoping to be picked to perform with the New York City Ballet someday. She gets better and better, until finally she is called to audition. She is cast as Marie, “the hero of the story!” She is surprised to learn that she will be the first Black girl to play this role with the New York City Ballet, but she hopes other children who see her perform will feel as she did: “Welcomed. Beautiful. Ready to dance!” Readers watch as Charlotte prepares, debuts, and performs her role, then celebrates Christmas with family traditions from her family’s dual Trinidadian and Filipinx heritage. Charlotte feels the magic of the season on stage and at home. The illustrations use a variety of perspectives to portray Charlotte’s journey as observer, performer, sister, and daughter. The emphasis on her persistent practice makes her success especially gratifying. This satisfying story of inspiration, dedication, perseverance, and progress will have readers yearning to see the ballet and get into the holiday spirit. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Lovely. (author's note) (Picture book/memoir. 4-8)Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-37490-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
PROFILES
As ephemeral as a valentine.
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)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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