A nurturing sendoff into a dreamworld of playful wonderment.
See offers a bedtime story exploring the potential and reality of dreams in this picture book.
For the story’s grateful mother, the birth of her child is the brightest dream come true (“Your first hello made everything right”). In reverence of that, she extolls the virtue of dreams in a bedtime story meant to guide her baby into peaceful slumber. The mother encourages her child to go to the farthest reaches of her mind. Sometimes with mommy in tow and other times with a fuzzy white bunny that has tall, rocket-shaped ears, the small child (who, like her mother, has pale skin and dark hair) ventures out into various landscapes, exploring whatever might exist in each one. While urging her child not to be bound by worldly matters or naysayers, the mother warns of hurdles that are inevitable along the way, reminding the little one that she will always be there to support them and love them. See has rendered this bedtime story in poetic verses broken up into two or three quatrains that question and inspire; this is followed by a couplet that pulls the child back into the safety net of the mother’s warmth and belief in them. Javier’s chalky illustrations, in deep purples, night and sky blues, and luminous pinks, are speckled with twinkling stars and planets, all hazily softened to evoke a dreamscape primed for subconscious imaginative play.
Pub Date: June 12, 2024
ISBN: 9786210614275
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet notion that falls flat.
A hit song reimagined as a book about parental love.
Featured in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1, Perri’s “A Thousand Years” deals with the speaker’s fear of romantic love. In picture-book form, it explores a parent’s unwavering love for a child, who grows from an infant into a toddler over the course of the narrative. The caregiver expresses awe when the youngster learns to stand and fear that the child might fall while beginning to walk. “I have spent every day waiting for you,” the parent says. “Darling, don’t be afraid.” What the child might fear isn’t clear from the joyful balloon- and rainbow-filled illustrations. The story borders on cloying, and words that might work when sung and accompanied by music don’t sound fresh on the page: “Time goes by. / You grow ever stronger as you fly.” The refrain, however, is a lovely sentiment: “I have loved you for a thousand years. / I’ll love you for a thousand more.” Perri’s legion of fans may flock to this version, illustrated by Ruiz with sparkling stars, bubbles, and big-eyed toddlers, but it doesn’t hold together as a narrative or an ode, as it’s billed, and it’s a long way from the original song. The child is tan-skinned, the parent is lighter-skinned, and other characters are diverse.
A sweet notion that falls flat. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2025
ISBN: 9780593622599
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
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