Though preachy, this simple, creatively illustrated story encourages empathy and compassion.
Imagine what you would do with a magic pencil.
Margarita, who lives with her two dads, has a play date with Daniel and Charlie, who have two moms. On the way to the park, they see their neighbor Mrs. Cranky’s hungry cat and feed it even though it means buying milk and jumping over Mrs. Cranky’s fence. They expect Mrs. Cranky to be mad at them, but she rewards their kindness with a magic pencil (for Margarita), a sharpener (for Daniel), and an eraser (for Charlie). The trio soon learn that whatever the pencil draws becomes real. Thankfully, the magic eraser solves the problem of a castle in the middle of the road that blocks traffic. Too soon, the pencil wears down, and the children realize they’ve drawn only things for themselves. After some resharpening, they quickly begin drawing houses, hospitals, and schools for people who need them. With the pencil’s stub, Margarita draws lots of hearts so that “everyone would love one another, even if they were different, from different countries, of different skin colors ….People with two moms or two dads.” While a little didactic, the story, translated from Spanish, raises thought-provoking questions: What would a reader do if they received a magic pencil? The book’s illustrations make inspired use of collage, mixing cartoonish images of the children with photos of cats, fences, a lawn, and more. Margarita has light skin, blond hair, and blue eyes, while Daniel and Charlie have brown skin and black hair. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Though preachy, this simple, creatively illustrated story encourages empathy and compassion. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-84-18599-59-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: NubeOcho
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre.
Ice princess Lina must navigate family and school in this early chapter read.
The family picnic is today. This is not a typical gathering, since Lina’s maternal relatives are a royal family of Windtamers who have power over the weather and live in castles floating on clouds. Lina herself is mixed race, with black hair and a tan complexion like her Asian-presenting mother’s; her Groundling father appears to be a white human. While making a grand entrance at the castle of her grandfather, the North Wind, she fails to successfully ride a gust of wind and crashes in front of her entire family. This prompts her stern grandfather to ask that Lina move in with him so he can teach her to control her powers. Desperate to avoid this, Lina and her friend Claudia, who is black, get Lina accepted at the Hilltop Science and Arts Academy. Lina’s parents allow her to go as long as she does lessons with grandpa on Saturdays. However, fitting in at a Groundling school is rough, especially when your powers start freak winter storms! With the story unfurling in diary format, bright-pink–highlighted grayscale illustrations help move the plot along. There are slight gaps in the storytelling and the pacing is occasionally uneven, but Lina is full of spunk and promotes self-acceptance.
A jam-packed opener sure to satisfy lovers of the princess genre. (Fantasy. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-35393-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series.
When Dr. Bunsen, Gabe, Laura, and Cesar's mad-scientist neighbor, tries out his growth machine on Gabe's plastic animal toys, there's an unexpected result—they come to life.
Second-grade whiz kids Gabriel Martinez, Laura Reyes, and Cesar Moreno meet their strange neighbor while fundraising for a science-club field trip. Known to their classmates as “the Data Set,” they each have individual passions: Gabe loves animals; Laura loves to tinker and invent; Cesar loves to read and eat. There’s room for all these activities in their well-equipped treehouse. Together, their fantastic adventures will be the stuff of four titles scheduled for 2016 and aimed directly at first- and second-graders already devouring books. This episode introduces the characters, sets up the problem (the cute but rapidly growing baby animals), and finds a solution (sneak them into the zoo) in 126 fast-paced pages written with plenty of dialogue and copiously illustrated with appealing drawings. With these Latino protagonists—Cesar has dark skin and curly hair, while Laura and Gabe have lighter skin and straight hair—and a STEM-infused plot, this would seem to have been made to order for today’s elementary school students. While the emphasis is far more on plot than STEM, the kid-friendly fantasy should captivate readers, who will certainly want to gobble up the next installment. (Tantalizingly, the opening pages are included.)
First of a tasty if not immediately nourishing new series. (Adventure. 5-8)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5729-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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