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ALSO

Name: ALSO
Author: E.B. Goodale
ISBN: 978-0-358-15394-8

by E.B. Goodale ; illustrated by E.B. Goodale ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 2022

A simple but profound meditation on memory and its power to foster continuity and connectedness.

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Sitting among blueberry bushes on a hillside overlooking her grandmother’s yellow house, a young girl remembers camping with her mother in the very same spot as a toddler.

From her perch, the girl can see her gramma at the yellow house’s kitchen window. Gramma is washing dishes and silently reminiscing about childhood days spent in her mother’s garden. As the girl’s mother (Gramma’s daughter) comes down the hill to fetch her, she, too, is lost in memories—of fun times spent sorting berries in the yellow house’s kitchen when she was younger. In this fashion, the narrative swings back and forth among the three characters, with the artwork alternating between grayscale spreads showing scenes from their interconnected memories and full-color spreads depicting the present. Readers watch the trio—and the grandmother’s cat—grow older; but, some things, comfortingly, never change. Wherever the characters are (literally or figuratively) in the here and now, the textual refrain points out that they are “also there,” meaning the intangible place where memories lie, untouched by the passage of time. Spare lines of imagistic text on each double-spread page poignantly capture brief moments in time, haikulike, and create a dreamy rhythm well suited to the nostalgic narrative. Goodale’s illustrations, executed on kitaka paper using monoprint, gouache, and (fittingly) blueberry ink, are gentle and quiet with a homespun feel. All characters are White.

A simple but profound meditation on memory and its power to foster continuity and connectedness. (recipe) (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-358-15394-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
A POCKET FULL OF ROCKS
by Kristin Mahoney ; illustrated by E.B. Goodale

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BEES OF NOTRE-DAME
by Meghan P. Browne ; illustrated by E.B. Goodale

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THE MOON REMEMBERS
by E.B. Goodale ; illustrated by E.B. Goodale

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PAPA'S COMING HOME

by Chasten Buttigieg ; illustrated by Dan Taylor ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 20, 2025

An affirming, though lackluster, look at a loving queer family.

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For his debut picture book, teacher and activist Chasten Buttigieg draws inspiration from life with husband Pete Buttigieg, former U.S. transportation secretary.

The big day has finally arrived! Rosie and Jojo have been counting down the days until Papa comes home from his work trip. With a little help from Daddy, they make “welcome home” signs to greet Papa at the airport, pick flowers from the garden, and bake a “seven-layer chocolate cake with purple and yellow frosting.” Much to Daddy’s bemusement, the kids gather all of Papa’s favorite things, including his robe and slippers and their adorable pooch, Butter, as they walk out the door to pick up Papa from his travels. The author offers an affectionate portrait of the everyday domestic life of a same-sex family unit. While many kids and adults will be pleased to see their experiences reflected on the page, both the choppy writing and the flat digital artwork are fairly bland. Characters display similarly excited facial expressions throughout, while the portrayal of the children borders on overly cutesy at times, with intentionally misspelled signs throughout the house (“Papa’s Very Spechull Garden. Please do not tutch”). Like the author’s actual children, Rosie and Jojo are brown-skinned, while Daddy and Papa present white.

An affirming, though lackluster, look at a loving queer family. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: May 20, 2025

ISBN: 9780593693988

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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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)