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A PLACE FOR FEELINGS

Heartfelt but overly idealistic.

Big feelings needn’t be scary.

For Mara, “There’s a place for everything!” She’s tucked treasures—even pieces of items she broke unintentionally—into special receptacles. After a confrontation with an angry playmate, Mara realizes that she doesn’t have a place for her “terrible feeling.” Mom explains that one can also keep feelings stored away; hers are in a jewelry box. Mom also divulges where Mara’s brother and dad keep theirs—his closet and the freezer, respectively. Mara figures there must be a feelings repository for her. She tries some ideas, but her feelings don’t fit anywhere. They burst from her dollhouse and can’t be contained within her family’s hiding places. Mara’s emotions are “too big, too wild”; there simply isn’t room for them. Oh, but there is: They fit everywhere. Images depict colorful lines and shapes wafting through the neighborhood, to everyone’s delight. The idea that it’s OK to feel big emotions and helpful to share them with others is an important one. It’s not conveyed convincingly, however, and the ending, while uplifting, strains credulity and ignores the fact that little ones do need to find ways to keep complex emotions in check. Lively illustrations, created digitally and with colored pencils, depict Mara and her family as tan-skinned; background characters are diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, age, and physical ability.

Heartfelt but overly idealistic. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: April 23, 2024

ISBN: 9780063269453

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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

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BUDDY'S NEW BUDDY

From the Growing With Buddy series , Vol. 3

Making friends isn’t always this easy and convenient.

How do you make a new friend when an old one moves away?

Buddy (from Sorry, Grown-Ups, You Can’t Go to School, 2019, etc.) is feeling lonely. His best friend just moved across town. To make matters worse, there is a field trip coming up, and Buddy needs a bus partner. His sister, Lady, has some helpful advice for making a new pal: “You just need to find something you have in common.” Buddy loves the game Robo Chargers and karate. Surely there is someone else who does, too! Unfortunately, there isn’t. However, when a new student arrives (one day later) and asks everyone to call her Sunny instead of Alison, Buddy gets excited. No one uses his given name, either; they just call him Buddy. He secretly whispers his “real, official name” to Sunny at lunch—an indication that a true friendship is being formed. The rest of the story plods merrily along, all pieces falling exactly into place (she even likes Robo Chargers!), accompanied by Bowers’ digital art, a mix of spot art and full-bleed illustrations. Friendship-building can be an emotionally charged event in a child’s life—young readers will certainly see themselves in Buddy’s plight—but, alas, there is not much storytelling magic to be found. Buddy and his family are White, Sunny and Mr. Teacher are Black, and Buddy’s other classmates are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Making friends isn’t always this easy and convenient. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: July 12, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-593-30709-0

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022

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