The spiky, colorful art is more interesting than the plot, but Millie’s fierceness in the middle will speak both to tots...
Alluring, edgy watercolors with sharp angles show a tyke’s transformation from mild to monstrous and back again.
“Millie was too short to be tall, too quiet to be loud, and too plain to be fancy.” Pink-cheeked and limp-haired, Millie feels like nothing special. She’s ignored and harassed. Schoolmates tromp on her chalk sidewalk picture, walking “all over her flower, and over it, and over it, until it [i]s nothing more than a big, multicolored smudge.” Such bullying is beyond tolerance, and Millie Fierce emerges. From downcast and slouchy, “feeling like a smudge” herself, Millie becomes upright, hands on hips, eyebrows aggressively slanted. She “frizze[s] out her hair and ma[kes] the crazy eye.” She demands that grandpa “Look at me and my ferocity!” But Millie’s assertiveness ratchets too high. She flicks food, paints the dog blue, howls at a nonplussed moon and becomes a bully herself. Coming unsurprisingly full circle, Millie concludes that “she likes being good better than being fierce.” Manning’s intense colors feature fine and pointy details, and her paintings warrant more than a quick glance. It’s too bad that Millie’s symbolically fierce hairdo is a common style for curly-haired kids.
The spiky, colorful art is more interesting than the plot, but Millie’s fierceness in the middle will speak both to tots who’ve tried it and those who haven’t. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-25642-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children.
Interior decorator and TV personality Gaines invites readers to open their eyes and exercise their imaginations.
There’s a world to be explored out there—and only children can really take part. What does “looking for wonder” entail? Slowing down and looking up, around, and everywhere. At the outset, a group of eager, racially diverse young friends—including one who uses a wheelchair—are fully prepared for a grand adventure. They offer tips about how and where to look: Why, there’s a “grand parade” of marching ants! And, these kids add, perspective is key. A rainy day might signal gloom to some, but to those filled with wonder, showers bring “magic puddles for play”; a forest is “an enchanted world,” the ocean conceals “a spectacular city,” and the night sky boasts “extraordinary sights.” The takeaway: “Wonder is never in short supply.” It’s a robust, empowering message, as is the exhortation to “keep your mind open, and let curiosity guide the way.” Youngsters are also advised to share their discoveries. The upbeat narrative is delivered in clunky verse, but the colorful cartoonish illustrations brimming with activity and good cheer (including some adorable anthropomorphized animals in the backgrounds) make up for the textual lapses and should motivate readers to embark on their own “wonder explorations.”
Handy advice for perpetually inquisitive children. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781400247417
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tommy Nelson
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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