A simple, wholesome message, focused more on reassurance than categorization.
An affirmation that brains have plenty of important jobs and, often, different ways of doing them.
Rightly noting that all brains “look pretty much the same,” Gravel keeps things simple, both conceptually and in her cartoon images of a pink lump resembling a “squishy [wad] of chewing gum” and kitted out with googly eyes. Brains, her cerebral narrator proclaims, have many “superpowers,” from thinking and feeling to collecting information and telling us what to do. While the brains of neurodiverse and neurotypical people may physically look similar, Gravel notes that we may learn at different speeds or in different ways; some may need help from a friend. Some of us may act or feel differently (“all our feelings are valid,” Gravel stresses), and sometimes those differences can be confusing to us or others. Still, if all brains were the same, the world would be “very boring.” Therefore, the author/illustrator concludes, we can keep our brains happy and healthy by taking proper care of our bodies and talking about our feelings. The potato-shaped bodies in the illustrations come in a variety of sizes and colors; some wear eyeglasses or sunglasses of different styles, and one figure uses a wheelchair.
A simple, wholesome message, focused more on reassurance than categorization. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781797228204
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A mixed bag.
An alphabetical tour of emotions.
This British import mixes words that many young kids will know, such as brave, kind, and mad (the last defined in the American sense, as angry), with less-familiar ones such as overwhelmed and vulnerable. It even features at least one word that may be new to adults: “X is for Xenial….Xenial is being welcoming to strangers.” Compounding the difficulty here, the visual image of a Black kid dressed as a magician hugging a rabbit they’ve pulled out of a hat does not exactly illustrate xeniality (xenialness?). Other illustrations do a better job of helping readers understand the words being introduced. The illustrations feature racially diverse children and are usually paired in each double-page spread: “A is for Anxious. Anxious is feeling really worried about something. / B is for Brave. Brave is being nervous about something and doing it anyway.” On the A page, a brown-skinned kid cowers from the dragon that encircles their bed, as in a nightmare. Across the gutter on the B page, the ferociously scowling child confronts the now-intimidated monster. Kids will get an immediate sense of those two words. Animals, real and imaginary, often play a role in the pictures. The book will be best shared one on one or in very small groups, when children can really spend time examining the pictures and talking about their own impression of what is happening in each picture. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A mixed bag. (word list) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-20519-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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