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PENGUIN PROBLEMS

Name: PENGUIN PROBLEMS
Author: Jory John
ISBN: 978-0-553-51337-0

by Jory John ; illustrated by Lane Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2016

Well-paced, bursting with humor, and charmingly misanthropic.

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Being a penguin isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in John and Smith’s debut collaboration.

A small penguin sleeping on a snow mound reluctantly wakes up, instantly exasperated with everything. Bemoaning the cold, the snow, and other things readers might take for granted as penguin pleasures, the protagonist heads off to begin a day full of one downer after another. The fish the penguin would like to eat for breakfast are disobliging about being caught; the ocean is too salty and cold, and it is inconveniently full of predators; and even the smallest things about being a penguin (waddling, flightlessness, and looking exactly like everyone else) are intolerably irritating. Increasingly outraged by a litany of injustices worthy of Judith Viorst’s classic grump Alexander, the penguin is offered a more balanced if somewhat lofty perspective by a walrus who suggests that, difficulties notwithstanding, the penguin is surrounded by beauty and love. Smith’s singular visual characterization follows through on John’s ironic humor throughout the narrative, and though both the visual and textual fall momentarily and appropriately flat when the walrus’ speech takes over an entire page, the penguin, who concedes the walrus’ point, nevertheless gets the last word in an admirable and important validation of personal feelings, grumbles and all.

Well-paced, bursting with humor, and charmingly misanthropic. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-553-51337-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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by Jory John ; illustrated by Pete Oswald

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by Jory John ; illustrated by Olivier Tallec

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THE BIG CHEESE
by Jory John ; illustrated by Pete Oswald

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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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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)