A perceptive embrace of imagination and empathy.
An imaginative girl faces a long hospital stay.
When Erin looks to the sky, she sees “cloud babies”: such quirky critters as “a dragon who had run out of puff” or “a fox who was late for school.” One day, Erin feels sick and goes to the children’s hospital, a world of buzzing beds, beeping machines, welcoming staff, and new friends. There, spotting cloud babies provides comfort and a way for her and Dad to bond even when they’re apart. But back at school after her long stay, Erin feels different. She’s shorter than her classmates, and when she tells the class about cloud babies, her teacher turns them into a science lesson, stripping them of their joy. On follow-up “hospital days,” kids of all ages play together, but Erin and her classmates are all 6—too old for cloud babies, she decides, resolving to keep her “two worlds” of hospital and school separate. But she feels like she’s “floating somewhere in between” both. Then, Mom gets an idea….Colfer’s clear, gentle text will resonate with kids experiencing chronic illness and their parents alike as he explores the complexity of feeling alternately accepted by and different from peers. Emphasizing the interplay of imagination and reality, Judge’s bright illustrations mingle expressive cartoon figures and realistic backgrounds. Erin and her parents have pale skin; other characters are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A perceptive embrace of imagination and empathy. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5362-3107-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning.
Children realize their dreams one step at a time in this story about growth mindset.
A child crashes and damages a new bicycle on a dark, rainy day. Attempting a wheelie, the novice cyclist falls onto the sidewalk, grimacing, and, having internalized this setback as failure, vows to never ride again but to “walk…forever.” Then the unnamed protagonist happens upon a glowing orb in the forest, a “thought rearranger-er”—a luminous pink fairy called the Magical Yet. This Yet reminds the child of past accomplishments and encourages perseverance. The second-person rhyming couplets remind readers that mistakes are part of learning and that with patience and effort, children can achieve. Readers see the protagonist learn to ride the bike before a flash-forward shows the child as a capable college graduate confidently designing a sleek new bike. This book shines with diversity: racial, ethnic, ability, and gender. The gender-indeterminate protagonist has light brown skin and exuberant curly locks; Amid the bustling secondary cast, one child uses a prosthesis, and another wears hijab. At no point in the text is the Yet defined as a metaphor for a growth mindset; adults reading with younger children will likely need to clarify this abstract lesson. The artwork is powerful and detailed—pay special attention to the endpapers that progress to show the Yet at work.
A solid if message-driven conversation starter about the hard parts of learning. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-368-02562-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion/LBYR
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
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