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AT THE WINDOW

Name: AT THE WINDOW
Author: Hope Lim
ISBN: 9781536224788

by Hope Lim ; illustrated by Qin Leng ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2025

A quiet celebration of community and writing.

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An open window sparks friendship—and leads to inspiration.

Each day, the young narrator walks a small dog past a neighbor’s house, and each day, the neighbor sits by the open window working. The child wonders what she’s doing and why her window has no curtains. The two soon become friendly acquaintances. A turning point arrives when the protagonist tells the neighbor that the dog is called Bear. “What a big name for a small dog!” the neighbor says, finding just the right words to make the youngster smile. Some of the child’s questions are answered; as it turns out, the neighbor’s a writer. Suddenly, the woman moves away. Saddened, the child visits the house (now for sale) and gazes out the window. Rewarded by “a sweeping view of our block…and the wide open sky,” the young narrator realizes at last why the neighbor always eschewed curtains. Back at home, the child begins writing a letter. To the neighbor? No, to another, brown-skinned child who lives nearby—a less obvious but inspired choice on Lim’s part. Leng’s airy, expressive ink-and-watercolor illustrations alternate between panels and full-bleed spreads, employing a range of perspectives to gently guide readers through this well-paced and simply lovely picture book. The narrator is light-skinned; the writer presents East Asian.

A quiet celebration of community and writing. (Picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: May 13, 2025

ISBN: 9781536224788

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
SOURGRASS
by Hope Lim ; illustrated by Shahrzad Maydani

- BOOK REVIEW
MOMMY'S HOMETOWN
by Hope Lim ; illustrated by Jaime Kim

- BOOK REVIEW
MY TREE
by Hope Lim ; illustrated by Il Sung Na

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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...

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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IMANI'S MOON

by JaNay Brown-Wood ; illustrated by Hazel Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 14, 2014

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child...

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Imani endures the insults heaped upon her by the other village children, but she never gives up her dreams.

The Masai girl is tiny compared to the other children, but she is full of imagination and perseverance. Luckily, she has a mother who believes in her and tells her stories that will fuel that imagination. Mama tells her about the moon goddess, Olapa, who wins over the sun god. She tells Imani about Anansi, the trickster spider who vanquishes a larger snake. (Troublingly, the fact that Anansi is a West African figure, not of the Masai, goes unaddressed in both text and author’s note.) Inspired, the tiny girl tries to find new ways to achieve her dream: to touch the moon. One day, after crashing to the ground yet again when her leafy wings fail, she is ready to forget her hopes. That night, she witnesses the adumu, the special warriors’ jumping dance. Imani wakes the next morning, determined to jump to the moon. After jumping all day, she reaches the moon, meets Olapa and receives a special present from the goddess, a small moon rock. Now she becomes the storyteller when she relates her adventure to Mama. The watercolor-and-graphite illustrations have been enhanced digitally, and the night scenes of storytelling and fantasy with their glowing stars and moons have a more powerful impact than the daytime scenes, with their blander colors.

While the blend of folklore, fantasy and realism is certainly far-fetched, Imani, with her winning personality, is a child to be admired. (Picture book. 5-8)