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NOT ’TIL TOMORROW, PHOEBE

Name: NOT ’TIL TOMORROW, PHOEBE
Author: Julie Zwillich
ISBN: 978-1-77147-172-5

From the Phoebe series , Vol. 2

by Julie Zwillich ; illustrated by Denise Holmes ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 2018

Those with limited budgets should opt for more-creative, less-contrived books that address this premise.

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Patience is not Phoebe’s strong suit.

Waiting until tomorrow for pancakes, ice cream, and a school party makes her grumpy. “Grown-ups always said tomorrow when they didn’t want to do something now.” This common frustration is the premise of this well-meaning but essentially bland picture book. Simple ink-outlined illustrations colored in Adobe Illustrator in muted shades of blue, orange, purple, and brown are designed in a retro style but feel incomplete. They do little to add interest or depth to the story. Phoebe has brown skin and puffy, brown hair, and her classmates are shown as a diverse mix. A brown-skinned, curly-haired child plays a drum, a red-haired, pale-skinned girl with glasses is assigned a maraca, and a light-skinned blonde girl plays a xylophone in her wheelchair. (Curiously, she does not have a mallet.) One of the teachers is pale; the other is light brown. After being told to wait until tomorrow all day long and falling into a snit, Phoebe melts down at her brown-skinned Grammy’s. Of course, Grammy offers, and Phoebe quickly accepts, the inevitable and simplistic resolution to the problem: a “secret ingredient to make [tomorrows] into todays” that is anticlimactically revealed to be a good night’s sleep. No doubt, Phoebe will find fans, as Zwillich is the creator of TV and internet video content in both Canada and the U.S.

Those with limited budgets should opt for more-creative, less-contrived books that address this premise. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: March 15, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-77147-172-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Owlkids Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
PHOEBE SOUNDS IT OUT
by Julie Zwillich ; illustrated by Denise Holmes

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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)

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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THE CRAYONS' CHRISTMAS

From the Creative Creature Catcher series

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2019

Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more.

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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)