Lovely to gaze upon and offering characters with promise, but the story doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Nam presents a fleeting, exotic introduction to the invention of coinage.
Young Laos lives in Sardis in the ancient kingdom of Lydia (today’s western Turkey), nearby the river of gold: Pactolus. Laos comes from a family of traders and goldsmiths, the gold panned in plenty from the sands of the Pactolus River. Indeed, so bountiful is the Pactolus that the legend of King Midas was minted along its banks. As the city is a great marketplace, the people of Sardis understand the vexations of barter as a system of exchange. Laos is drawn by Sforza with pale skin, a shock of black hair, and glistening eyes, his elders bearded (some bald, others hatted, few women), with settings that capture the feeling of ancient wall murals. He relays that the merchants need to simplify their transactions: it needs to be something light that won’t rot. Maybe gold or silver? They send these ideas to the king for consideration. The king creates a coin stamped with the titular lion and declares it currency. That’s rather neat and tidy, a gold mine for “how”s and “why”s of the dismal science that are left unanswered. A long supplementary author’s note testifies to the story’s lacunae.
Lovely to gaze upon and offering characters with promise, but the story doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. (glossary, timeline) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5475-9
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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
Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more.
A flurry of mail addressed to Duncan’s crayons ushers in the Christmas season in this novelty spinoff of the bestselling The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) and The Day the Crayons Came Home (2015).
Actual cards and letters are tucked into envelopelike pouches pasted to the pages; these are joined in some cases by other ephemera for a package that is likely to invite sudden, intense play followed by loss and/or damage that will render the book a disappointment to reread. That’s probably OK, as in contrast to the clever story that kicked this small series off, this outing has a hastily composed feel that lacks cohesion. The first letter is addressed to Peach from Mom and includes a paper doll of the “naked” (de-wrappered) crayon along with a selection of tabbed changes of clothing that includes a top hat and tails and a bikini top and bottom. Peach’s implied gender fluidity does not mitigate the unfortunate association of peach with skin color established in the first book. The sense of narrative improvisation is cemented with an early page turn that takes the crayons from outdoors snow play to “Feeling…suddenly very Christmas-y, the crayons headed inside.” Readers can unpack a box of punch-out decorations; a recipe for gluten-free Christmas cookies that begins “go to store and buy gluten-free cookies”; a punch-out dreidel (turns out Grey is Jewish); a board game (“six-sided die” not included); and a map of Esteban (aka Pea Green) and Neon Red’s travels with Santa.
Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more. (Novelty. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51574-6
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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