A timeless story of family secrets and healing.
Kumari shares the tale of a 7-year-old boy learning his family’s history in Kumari’s illustrated book for young readers.
Young Vivek visits his Daadi Maa (grandmotherin the Hindi language) on weekends. However, she always pinches his cheeks, criticizes his parents, and feeds him food with her homemade raisins, which he dislikes. One day, the annoyed boy decides to take Daadi Maa’s diary without permission: “He couldn’t have stopped himself even if he’d wanted to.” That night, Vivek hides under a blanket and eagerly opens the diary and begins to read. He learns of Daadi Maa’s upbringing in a poor farming family and reads about her brother Bhola, who spends time with a boy whom the very young Daadi Maa doesn’t like and calls “a crook.” Despite feeling a pang of guilt as he reads, Vivek continues and learns of a great tragedy—one that explains Daadi Maa’s habit of pinching cheeks. Later, Vivek and his mother visit Daadi Maa’s home; Vivek blurts out that he took her diary and begins asking questions about Bhola. Rather than being angry, Daadi Maa shares more details of her past and about her relationship with her son (Vivek’s late father), and she opens the door for a stronger bond between her, Vivek, and his mother. Over the course of the book, Vivek effectively broadens his understanding of his family members’ lives. Kumari offers young readers a poignant story that weaves together numerous Indian cultural elements, including raisin cake, traditional clothing, and Hindi terms. Daadi Maa’s story gradually unfolds through the characters’ words and those in her diary, which she kept as a young girl. Vivek’s thoughts and actions will be relatable to youngsters, and Shingre’s full-color cartoon illustrations are filled with vividness and detail; they complement the events of the story well.
A timeless story of family secrets and healing.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9798988420200
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2023
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
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.
A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.
Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.
Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593702901
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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