bookshelf

IT'S NOT LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

Name: IT'S NOT LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
Author: Josh Funk
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0666-8

From the It's Not a Fairy Tale series , Vol. 3

by Josh Funk ; illustrated by Edwardian Taylor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2020

Use this wild ride to shake things up with common sense and creativity.

bookshelf

The characters don’t cooperate with the narrator in this metafictive spoof on the classic fairy tale.

When the narrator introduces Little Red Riding Hood, she overhears from her home and calls out, “Hey! Someone’s talking about us!” She comments on all of the narration, in fact, and the narrator responds to her in turn while trying, in vain, to maintain control over the story. Red, though savvy, is willing to play along and act out the story. But, to the narrator’s dismay, the Big Bad Wolf is sick and has sent a pirate in its place, and the heroic woodsman couldn’t make it, so Pinocchio shows up instead. The notion of eating Grandma doesn’t sit well with the pirate, so the narrator can only relent as the characters make up their own happy ending. Colorful, dramatic, cartoony illustrations picture Red and her family with brown skin and puffy black hair; Red’s sister, Blue, uses a wheelchair (disappointingly, it’s not depicted as a self-propelled one); the pirate presents White and has a hook prosthesis. The many voices are differentiated by different typefaces, colors, and speech bubbles, giving the feel of a comic or play. Adults may have a difficult time performing them all as a read-aloud, but a child willing to alternate reading with an adult will enjoy the drama, and the jokes will be more fun that way too. Still, many will find this rewrite more thought-provoking than funny, and that’s not all bad either.

Use this wild ride to shake things up with common sense and creativity. (Picture book. 4-9)

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5420-0666-8

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Two Lions

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
DEAR UNICORN
by Josh Funk ; illustrated by Charles Santoso

- BOOK REVIEW
IT'S NOT THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
by Josh Funk ; illustrated by Edwardian Taylor

- BOOK REVIEW
MY PET FEET
by Josh Funk ; illustrated by Billy Yong

bookshelf

LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

bookshelf

How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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)