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SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE AN OAK

From the Sometimes I Feel Like series , Vol. 3

Tender and thought provoking.

Musings on emotions, through a Native lens.

“Sometimes I feel like a maple,” a young child notes, “full and most generous. / I share my flowing sap / as winter turns toward spring.” Alongside acrylic and gouache images from Traverse (Ojibway), the narrative’s gentle formula continues: Children identify their moods and characteristics and compare themselves to different trees, including a redwood, a cedar, and an aspen. On the full-bleed spreads, youngsters who vary in skin tone play, read, and quietly gaze at the trees, expressing a wide range of emotions both positive and negative. “Sometimes I feel like a willow, / shivery, sensitive and sad.” But “sometimes I feel like a tamarack, / resilient, striking, robust.” Backmatter lists the name of each tree, alongside a portrait and an associated emotion; readers are asked to reflect on what they “see and feel in the trees around” them. In an author’s note, Daniel connects her Algonquin ancestry to her understanding of trees as “sentient beings with spirits who can feel things.” Both the people and the land come to life in Traverse’s vibrant illustrations, which convey the majesty and evocative nature of trees. This simple story will invite children to relate to trees as teachers and healers, ones whom we might greet “as we would a person—worthy of kindness, respect, protection and love.”

Tender and thought provoking. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: April 2, 2024

ISBN: 9781773066981

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Groundwood

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 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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TINY T. REX AND THE IMPOSSIBLE HUG

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.

With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?

Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: March 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018

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