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Little Jimmy Says, "Same Is Lame"

Name: Little Jimmy Says, "Same Is Lame"
Author: Jimmy Vee
ISBN: 978-0985478223

by Jimmy Vee illustrated by Mike Motz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 4, 2014

Lap readers and independent readers alike will be drawn to this book’s cartoonish illustrations and inclusive message.

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In this children’s celebration of diversity, 5-foot-tall marketing expert Vee shows children that their differences can also be their strengths.

Little Jimmy, the author’s cartoon stand-in, is “unusually small,” but he doesn’t mind. “Each person is different,” he assures young readers, before going on to share how being short, tall, bespectacled, big, bald, large-nosed or scarred can be beneficial in life. He also highlights learned skills: “I can talk without moving my lips. / That’s what makes me a ventriloquist! / It is a thing that most people can’t do… / And something that makes me unusual too.” The book also touches on race as a quality that can make readers unique, although this aspect isn’t emphasized. The cartoonish illustrations show a multiethnic cast of various sizes and shapes, as befits the narrative, and Motz’s art style is sure to appeal to young readers. Although the rhymes are occasionally clunky,they flow well when read aloud. Problematically, however, Vee uses the word “lame,” which could refer to disability, as a negative. Also, at one point, a boy initially appears darkly scarred, but his injury is downplayed in a later illustration, after he becomes famous. However, these minor flaws don’t undermine the overall message. The book includes a page for young readers to write down “what’s unique about you,” and uses some vocabulary words, such as “ventriloquist” and “exploit,” clearly enough in context that independent readers should be able to gather their meanings. The book also encourages readers to learn about Vee’s Same Is Lame Foundation, at the author’s website.

Lap readers and independent readers alike will be drawn to this book’s cartoonish illustrations and inclusive message.

Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2014

ISBN: 978-0985478223

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Atlas Press

Review Posted Online: June 18, 2014

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS

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HOW TO MAKE YOUR SOCK TALK
by Jimmy Vee ; illustrated by Peter Raymundo

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)