A strong story about how small acts can affect others in a big way.
A scarf given as a gift offers a far greater sense of caring and connection than the giver ever imagined in Clarkson’s debut picture book.
In Florida, a knitter named Jo finishes a long red scarf. Even though she labors on it with love, she feels that it’s a humble gift. Preparing her offering, she tosses chocolate kisses in along with the scarf, wraps the box beautifully, and places a bright golden bow on top. After a month of travel, Jo’s box, along with a number of other gifts she’s collected, arrives in Romania. A young girl named Rodica receives Jo’s package. She’s excited to have something beautiful; with her family, she places the bow on a shelf of the house and carefully unwraps the present. The scarf, which Jo had found so humble, becomes an object of great significance for the family. The children wrap it around their hands when they sleep in a shared bed; they swaddle a sick baby in it as he recovers. The scarf acts as a flag, saving Rodica’s father’s life when a mine collapses, and as a banner to scare away birds from the collective fields. Finally, it becomes Rodica’s pillow, always reminding her of the love someone shared from across the world. (“To this very day, when Rodica lays her head upon the red scarf she thanks God for the someone, somewhere, who made the scarf that showed they cared.”) The story memorably demonstrates how valuable a small-seeming thing might be to the person who receives it. Young readers are likely to have questions about Rodica’s impoverished living conditions, and the book’s opening note offers some context about the communist regime of Romania in the 1980s. By using mainly black-and-white ink, with only a few colors as accents, Leander’s illustrations emphasize the importance of the shiny bow and the red scarf as bright spots in an otherwise bleak landscape. Some images are repeated with only small details changed, demarcating shifts in the story and the scarf’s importance very effectively. The tale celebrates an attitude of gratitude that children might do well to emulate.
A strong story about how small acts can affect others in a big way.Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 38
Publisher: WestBowPress
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Haphazard but jolly enough for one outing; it probably won’t last for more.
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)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51574-6
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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