Hopeful and magical; will instill determination and wonder in young readers.
In this picture book by Fonseca and Junius, a girl and a cat restore the ecology of a broken world.
Milo, a fantastic, large white cat, is a storyteller, and in his Technicolor stories there are “flowers so vibrant they put rainbows to shame, and living species so diverse, nobody had the time to find and count them all.” These spinning flowers and glittering trees appear painted in shining, complementary colors and repeating patterns. But these are long gone now. Instead of Technicolor, the world is painted in muted blues. In the ecologically destroyed world inhabited by Milo and nude, brown-skinned and red-haired narrator Zura, the soil is so congested with plastic trash and cables that no plants grow. “People buried their mistakes, instead of burying seeds,” Zura reflects. Overnight, the mountain she lives in with Milo transforms, and spontaneous flowers rise from the wounded land. But a mission still remains for the pair. All human characters are shown naked, though with no visible secondary sex characteristics. Backmatter describes small actions people can take to combat climate change. If there is a critique to be made, it’s that the book makes change seem easy. But Junius’ paintings of bright spreading flowers with bright, folk-art tones make this regenerative fairy tale appealing.
Hopeful and magical; will instill determination and wonder in young readers. (guide to small actions to prevent climate change) (picture book, ages 4-8)Pub Date: March 20, 2021
ISBN: 978- 99959-35-02-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Zoom éditions
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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