CAPTAIN STARFISH

Name: CAPTAIN STARFISH
Author: Davina Bell
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2837-2

by Davina Bell ; illustrated by Allison Colpoys ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 20, 2018

This gentle story ably helps fill a need in children’s literature and will help comfort small audiences with their own big...

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Bell’s debut picture book quietly shows a child working through his anxieties.

Alfie, a peach-colored child with shaggy brown hair and downcast eyes, is no stranger to “that feeling.” He worries about party games, is too afraid about losing races to even run in them, and doesn’t think he is “brave enough to be Captain Starfish” in his school’s Underwater Dress-Up Parade. The morning after an evocative dream in which “he was carrying the ocean, all on his own,” Alfie just can’t muster up the courage to go to school. His understanding mother takes him to the aquarium, where he’s at first chagrined by a showoff-y starfish but then momentarily comforted by a shy, smiling clown fish. Subdued blue and orange illustrations, with lots of white space, match the emotional pitch of the story. Alfie doesn’t make it to the parade that year, but “it doesn’t matter”; he decides that next year he will “dress up as a clown fish.” Alfie’s success, aided by loving and patient parents, provides a model for children struggling with anxiety and assures them of their ultimate worth and capability.

This gentle story ably helps fill a need in children’s literature and will help comfort small audiences with their own big fears. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: March 20, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4197-2837-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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ALL OF THE FACTORS OF WHY I LOVE TRACTORS
by Davina Bell ; illustrated by Jenny Løvlie

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UNDER THE LOVE UMBRELLA
by Davina Bell ; illustrated by Allison Colpoys

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ALL THE WAYS TO BE SMART
by Davina Bell ; illustrated by Allison Colpoys

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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)

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

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FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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TINY T. REX AND THE IMPOSSIBLE HUG

by Jonathan Stutzman ; illustrated by Jay Fleck ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2019

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

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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)