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BE MY BRAVE SUNFLOWER

Name: BE MY BRAVE SUNFLOWER
Author: Kathryn Simmonds
ISBN: 9781536235432

by Kathryn Simmonds ; illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 22, 2025

Sweetly uplifting.

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Growing up can be tough.

A teacher prepares some pots for children to plant sunflowers. Most of the seeds can’t wait to get out of their packets, but speckled Vernon is worried. He knows that the world is full of scary things, like birds and thunderstorms. A little girl named Carla gives Vernon a snug home in some soil, telling him, “Be my brave sunflower.” As the days pass, the other seeds sprout their first leaves, but Vernon is hesitant. While he’s peeking out one night at the stars, an owl swoops him up and drops him into the school sandbox. Thankfully Carla finds him the next day and replants him while repeating her request. Unlike the others, Vernon still refuses to sprout, however; it’s much safer in his pot! But he notices water dropping into his pot from an odd source—Carla’s tears. Vernon pushes himself (literally) to be brave in the hopes of delighting Carla the next day. Ultimately, Vernon is aware that he isn’t the tallest or grandest plant, but he’s knowledgeable—and he has Carla. This gently encouraging tale can serve as a model for young readers, even featuring a mantra to help kids persevere despite anxiety. Though the main characters never directly communicate, they successfully drive the narrative without visual awkwardness, thanks in large part to the soft-edged, charismatic digital illustrations, which show Carla with pale skin and straight blond hair.

Sweetly uplifting. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: July 22, 2025

ISBN: 9781536235432

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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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)