Playing a wrong note strikes the right chord for a determined little girl in this winning children’s story.
In Bader’s picture book, a new nickname invites a new perspective.
Petunia is a little girl who believes that everything has its proper place and that anything done less than perfectly is unacceptable. (“If there was one thing Petunia knew, it was the importance of being PERFECT.”) Petunia has never heard of a “perfectionist,” but when she overhears her classmate call her one, she looks up the word in the dictionary and proudly shares her new nickname with her mother at home. Petunia isn’t convinced when her mother tells her that there are benefits to making mistakes…until the unthinkable happens and Petunia makes a mistake herself. Encouraged by her teacher and her classmates, this aha moment helps her understand what her mom meant. Bader’s engaging text misses an opportunity: While highlighting the word mistake in red likely represents Petunia’s attitude toward imperfections, it reinforces her aversion when another color would have better supported the book’s theme of mistakes promoting growth. The images of Petunia’s fastidiously organized coloring pencils and books in Beykzadeh’s illustrations highlight her perfectionism and the book’s warm color palette. When other characters are depicted in shadow form, Petunia’s hyperfocus is made distinct. Figuring prominently throughout, the color purple cleverly chimes with the alliterative title.
Playing a wrong note strikes the right chord for a determined little girl in this winning children’s story.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798985768169
Page Count: 32
Publisher: M. Bader Media
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
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