bookshelf

BEE STILL

Name: BEE STILL
Author: Frank Sileo
ISBN: 978-1-4338-2870-6

AN INVITATION TO MEDITATION

by Frank Sileo ; illustrated by Claire Keay ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2018

There are plenty of reasons to pass on this one

bookshelf

A bee rejects busyness for meditation.

Oppressed by the hustle and bustle of the hive, Bentley yearns for quiet. One day he sits down on a daffodil and begins to meditate. This unusual practice draws other bees as well as the birds and animals that frequent the garden, and when Bentley becomes aware of them, he explains his unusual behavior: “Sometimes I have too many thoughts in my head. / Meditation can help me stay focused instead.” Soon he’s got the other animals meditating, encouraging them to “focus on your breathing” instead of stray thoughts. This changes the culture of the garden: “Now, before the animals burrow, build, or pollinate, / they gather in the garden to sit and meditate.” Two-plus pages of dense text close the book, offering tips to caregivers to help their children with mindfulness and meditation. While the selection of a bee as guide is artfully counterintuitive, it also opens the book up to some common pitfalls. Readers who know anything about bees will probably know that male bees aren’t particularly busy, so the choice of a drone as rebel is inaccurate. Moreover, the “hive” depicted in Keay’s bland, pastel cartoons is not a hive but a wasps’ nest—a common mistake. Leaving biology aside, the rhyming couplets are painfully forced.

There are plenty of reasons to pass on this one . (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4338-2870-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
SNITCHY WITCH
by Frank Sileo ; illustrated by MacKenzie Haley

bookshelf

CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

bookshelf

A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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)