Glowing and warm, full of life.
Every winter, a mother and child plant a garden in their city apartment.
The child, who has pale skin and wavy dark hair, explains that when it snows, the two of them plant seeds in pots that line the windowsill of their home. Delicate watercolor, colored pencil, and mixed-media paintings show them selecting and planting the “teeny tiny / seeds like freckles / seeds like eyelashes / seeds like the wings of bees.” Meanwhile, outside, blues and purples blanket the warm glow of streetlights, and “the leafless trees are stark and dark. / The cars roll by in slushy rumbles.” One day, the seeds sprout in the yellow glow of light, and they grow fast. Soon, the whole family is eating lettuce leaves that “crunch like / tiny icicles in my mouth,” and “the parsley dusts the potatoes / like green snowflakes.” On each page, winter imagery, both visual and linguistic, is paired with references to growth and vibrancy—a juxtaposition that emphasizes the joy and wonder of life, as well as the loving care that is given and received among both people and plants. The family soon needs more seeds, and the child gets to choose them, plant them, and wait…for spring. Endnotes give instructions on growing a winter garden, and beautiful endpapers feature paintings of plants and leaves. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Glowing and warm, full of life. (further reading) (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780823451012
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color.
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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