An engaging primer on embracing differences that deftly combines a narrative with hands-on learning.
A debut illustrated children’s book focuses on starting discussions about skin color and diversity with kids, centering on a South Asian audience.
This work tackles simple questions that school-aged children are likely to ask about others’ physical appearances and attitudes (“Why are our skin colors so different?” “Why are grown-ups sometimes mean to each other?”). In a series of chapters organized around themes (“Seeing Difference,” “Understanding Difference,” “Learning Difference,” “Loving Difference”), Gupta offers an arts-based slate of activities to help parents and educators explore questions that may otherwise be difficult to discuss. Pasricha’s detailed and appealing illustrations in muted colors depict brown-skinned children wearing a variety of clothing styles. The food and cultural references (laddoo sweets; Warli paintings) are Indian. A map shows “the Indian subcontinent” (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan are included inside one border) with various activities and Hindu/Mughal cultural sites labeled. The activities included will be useful for many families and classrooms. One activity invites children to find a family member’s skin tone on a page of different-colored fingerprints while another helps kids think about nature’s diversity by collecting and painting leaves. The text prioritizes understanding the natural origins of human diversity and encouraging curiosity about others’ cultures and backgrounds. A role-playing activity featuring a drawing filled with kids with different skin colors, body sizes, and presentations invites youngsters to rehearse how they would ask questions about differences in a good-faith way. Terms like melanin, adaptation, and stereotype are defined for readers. A short history of racism, in South Asia and the world at large, is a bit pat (“One day” oppressed people “fought and defeated the bossy ones”). But lessons throughout encourage readers to dismiss racist stereotypes, and a call to action asks children to intervene in racist incidents.
An engaging primer on embracing differences that deftly combines a narrative with hands-on learning.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73256-442-8
Page Count: 44
Publisher: The Colo(u)rism Project
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
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
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.
A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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