Colorful and creative—a crafty way to impart life lessons.
In Olson’s picture book, a button who loves dancing must conquer her stage fright.
Emily, an anthropomorphized button the color and texture of a strawberry, is happy dancing and twirling her blue ribbon in the privacy of her craft-box bedroom. Her friend Becky, a yellow button, enters them both in a talent show, but Emily doesn’t want to dance in public—she’s very anxious about making a mistake (“I might mess up”). But she agrees, for Becky’s sake. They practice hard, and once they’re on stage together, Emily is able to perform…until she trips on her ribbon and falls down. Luckily, Becky keeps singing. Emily picks herself up and restarts her routine. After the show, her button friends all congratulate her and ask her to teach them dancing. Olson tells Emily’s story through simple prose and exquisitely staged photographs depicting actual google-eyed buttons with wire legs and arms. The scenes are ingenious in their composition, incorporating motion shots (note especially Emily’s ribbon dances, and the juggling tableau on Page 14), setting-appropriate repurposings (such as pencils for bench seats), a mixture of artfully focused close-up and establishing shots, and copious background details to contextualize the button protagonists. Emily is a relatable character and her trepidation will resonate with many a budding young performer. That she actually does mess up is an astute plot development, teaching kids to embrace the doing and sharing of what they love—not to overvalue being perfect at it.
Colorful and creative—a crafty way to impart life lessons.Pub Date: April 6, 2025
ISBN: 9798986047263
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Bellie Button Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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