Bolstering and affirming.
An ABC book that celebrates that sweetest of sounds: your name.
Climbing a rock wall, sailing across a starlit sea, and gamboling through floral landscapes, the diverse characters who populate these pages proclaim that your name is “the snap pop / of your essence / your presence / your superpower.” Infused with alphabetically arranged positive descriptors (“Your name is Alive. / A melody of letters,” “Your name is a Gift / Plucked from your family tree”), Gopal’s rhyming text builds to a rousing crescendo of everything that makes you “zesty zingy zen-sational you.” Quieter verses offer readers space to consider the origins of their names and to reflect on “your true self / and your place in this world.” The use of made-up terms—vibrosonic, wonderific—feels a bit out of place in a book centered on the alphabet, though the words don’t detract from the uplifting message. On each page, the main word appears prominently, styled in inventive ways: electricity presented in a jagged font, set against a sky filled with lightning; knowledge spelled out on a classroom blackboard. Sua’s cut-paper artwork creates dynamic lines as well as movement that follows the rhythms of the text. An author’s note advises readers to take special care to say people’s names the way they would like; Gopal and Sua also explain the meanings of their own names.
Bolstering and affirming. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781454947424
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his...
It’s a wonderful day in the jungle, so why’s Jim Panzee so grumpy?
When Jim woke up, nothing was right: "The sun was too bright, the sky was too blue, and bananas were too sweet." Norman the gorilla asks Jim why he’s so grumpy, and Jim insists he’s not. They meet Marabou, to whom Norman confides that Jim’s grumpy. When Jim denies it again, Marabou points out that Jim’s shoulders are hunched; Jim stands up. When they meet Lemur, Lemur points out Jim’s bunchy eyebrows; Jim unbunches them. When he trips over Snake, Snake points out Jim’s frown…so Jim puts on a grimacelike smile. Everyone has suggestions to brighten his mood: dancing, singing, swinging, swimming…but Jim doesn’t feel like any of that. He gets so fed up, he yells at his animal friends and stomps off…then he feels sad about yelling. He and Norman (who regrets dancing with that porcupine) finally just have a sit and decide it’s a wonderful day to be grumpy—which, of course, makes them both feel a little better. Suzanne Lang’s encouragement to sit with your emotions (thus allowing them to pass) is nearly Buddhist in its take, and it will be great bibliotherapy for the crabby, cranky, and cross. Oscar-nominated animator Max Lang’s cartoony illustrations lighten the mood without making light of Jim’s mood; Jim has comically long arms, and his facial expressions are quite funny.
Though Jim may have been grumpy because a chimp’s an ape and not a monkey, readers will enjoy and maybe learn from his journey. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-53786-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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