A mother underestimates her young son’s memory in Fitzpatrick’s (I’m a Tiger Too!, p. 410, etc.) inventive offering. “When you were a baby we went to sea, didn’t we?” Fitzgerald begins, “You, Aunt Alice and me, all three. And a big, big trunk. But you were only a baby. You wouldn’t remember.” The opening spread reveals the Victorian-era scene as the pair share a scrapbook of the journey. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald’s luminous watercolors tell the story from the child’s perspective and reveal what really happened in alternating three-quarter-page spreads and framed vignettes. For example, the baby sees a deck hand drop the open trunk, but the mother doesn’t notice because her back is turned; opposite, stockings and other garments drift to sea in a thumbnail sketch. In the spread that follows (“We waved bye-bye, didn’t we? Then we were away, just like that, without any fuss,”) the baby bids adieu to a crewmember as he falls overboard. The format repeats throughout—mother’s story, refrain (“But you were only a baby. / You wouldn’t remember”) and child’s-eye view. Fitzgerald’s illustrations work in tandem with the text and are notable in their attention to detail. Children will enjoy pointing out the activity in each scene, making this a good choice for lap sharing. Unfortunately, the repetitive text—the very device on which the story hangs—soon wears thin, the set-up condescending. Although the now school-age child is capable of giving voice to his own experience, he remains silent throughout. He’ll have to rely on the audience to do the talking for him. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7613-1691-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
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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