A feel-good story that asks us to look beyond color to see the beauty in everyone.
A newly minted elder sister welcomes her sibling.
Kundana skips along with her father to pick up her mother and baby sister. Noticing how the baby coos like a koel cuckoo, Kundana suggests that she be named Kuku, and their parents agree. Kuku shares their mother’s dark complexion, while Kundana resembles their light-skinned father. At home, the girls’ grandmother welcomes Kuku with a red dot, or tilak, for good luck. She squints as she asks, “What color is the baby?” Visitors and family members calling from India all want to know, too. Kundana notices how this question makes her mother’s smile droop, and her father seems distracted, too. After hearing this question for the umpteenth time, Kundana responds that Kuku has her father’s eyes, her mother’s skin, Kundana’s hair, her uncle’s ears, her aunt’s smile, and her grandmother’s nose. “She is our color,” the child announces, winning everyone’s hearts. This sweet story tackles a loaded question that crops up in many South Asian families and that hints at a preference for light-skinned children. Though the query is awkwardly presented (after all, the visitors can plainly see the baby), Kundana’s loving, openhearted attitude shines through. The tale gently reminds adult readers that children absorb attitudes and prejudices they see around them. Rawat’s detailed illustrations feature traditional Indian foods, attire, and decor, creating a warm sense of home and belonging.
A feel-good story that asks us to look beyond color to see the beauty in everyone. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781536228946
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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