Children will enjoy the experience of reading this book again and again, noticing something new each time.
What could be the perfect pet? A fairy? A giant? Maybe a mermaid? The child in this story tells of all the wonderful things they would do if only they had a unicorn.
A small child with brown skin and short, curly hair appears to be in a museum admiring medieval unicorn tapestries when a wish for one becomes reality. The child is whisked away by the unicorn, who provides sweet treats for every meal, long rides on its back, and even demonstrations of its magic. The unicorn turns a backyard into a colorful jungle of flowers, and the gloomy bedroom of an older kid who’s clearly into emo into a fairy-tale scene complete with a surprising change of attire. Readers will enjoy pointing out characters and items they will recognize from other fairy tales and stories, and they will have fun with some of the very clever rhymes in which the illustrations do double duty as rebuses by representing missing text. Readers learn that unicorns’ “favorite food is ice cream, / vanilla just one scoop. / I think they do a multicolored, / unicorny…”; a turn of the page reveals the missing rhyming word. Hint: It starts with the letter P and will have preschoolers in gales of giggles. This story is an excellent lap read, and the fun rhyming text and bright, easily decoded, whimsical illustrations with plenty of white space also make it a winning read-aloud. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.3-by-18.8-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)
Children will enjoy the experience of reading this book again and again, noticing something new each time. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-500-65226-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
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
Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.
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)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7033-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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