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IZZY AND FRANK

Name: IZZY AND FRANK
Author: Katrina Lehman
ISBN: 978-1-950354-23-8

by Katrina Lehman ; illustrated by Sophie Beer ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 7, 2020

Beautifully pitched tale for kids leaving behind familiar places and moving to new ones.

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Moving away from the island where she’s always lived, a little girl misses everything, especially her best friend.

Izzy loves living on an island in a lighthouse with a “staircase that twirled high into the sky.” Most of all, she loves her sea gull pal, Frank. On “gray-storm-rainy days,” they dig for buried treasure, play hide-and-seek, and draw in the sand. On “blue-sky-sunny days,” they swim with seals and hunt crabs or starfish. “Wild-wind-blowy days” they evade sea monsters and fight pirates. Then Izzy moves to the city, to a small house with “sharp corners” and no sea view. Izzy hates the city. The games other children play seem alien, and she must wear shoes and be quiet. She misses the wind, salt, sand, the lighthouse, the island, and, most of all, Frank. Izzy searches the streets and sky for Frank, and, one morning, he alights on her windowsill, ready to help her reinvent her life. Peppered with sensory images—“wind that whistled and wailed,” “crusty crabs,” and “sparkly, spiky starfish”—the alliterative text invites reading aloud. With its perky palette of aqua and orange, the simple, playful illustrations show Izzy as an exuberant white girl with freckles and unruly red curls who gradually adapts her free-spirited island life with Frank to an urban venue with new, diverse friends.

Beautifully pitched tale for kids leaving behind familiar places and moving to new ones. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: July 7, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-950354-23-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Scribble

Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
WREN
by Katrina Lehman ; illustrated by Sophie Beer

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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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LITTLE RED SLEIGH

by Erin Guendelsberger ; illustrated by Elizaveta Tretyakova ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2020

Sadly, the storytelling runs aground.

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A little red sleigh has big Christmas dreams.

Although the detailed, full-color art doesn’t anthropomorphize the protagonist (which readers will likely identify as a sled and not a sleigh), a close third-person text affords the object thoughts and feelings while assigning feminine pronouns. “She longed to become Santa’s big red sleigh,” reads an early line establishing the sleigh’s motivation to leave her Christmas-shop home for the North Pole. Other toys discourage her, but she perseveres despite creeping self-doubt. A train and truck help the sleigh along, and when she wishes she were big, fast, and powerful like them, they offer encouragement and counsel patience. When a storm descends after the sleigh strikes out on her own, an unnamed girl playing in the snow brings her to a group of children who all take turns riding the sleigh down a hill. When the girl brings her home, the sleigh is crestfallen she didn’t reach the North Pole. A convoluted happily-ever-after ending shows a note from Santa that thanks the sleigh for giving children joy and invites her to the North Pole next year. “At last she understood what she was meant to do. She would build her life up spreading joy, one child at a time.” Will she leave the girl’s house to be gifted to other children? Will she stay and somehow also reach ever more children? Readers will be left wondering. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 31.8% of actual size.)

Sadly, the storytelling runs aground. (Picture book. 3-6)