Look here for uncomplicated validation.
Chef and TV personality Hussain and illustrator Bailey team up once more, this time for the story of a boy and his parakeet.
A sky-blue bird named Rayf sits on the shoulder of an unnamed brown-skinned boy who narrates. They go everywhere together: the supermarket, Granny’s house, the top of a mountain. Bailey illustrates their relatively simple world with cheery colors, and everyone has big eyes, including some inanimate objects. Despite the friendly vibes, on the first day of summer camp, the boy worries when he notices that none of the other children have birds. He hangs his coat up, concealing Rayf in the pocket: “As long as Rayf doesn’t fly or sing, I will be okay. No one will know that I am different.” The boy plays with the other children, tamping down his sadness about Rayf until it’s time to go outside. The boy dons his coat, and once all the kids are in the garden, Rayf flies free before alighting on the boy’s hand. The boy reddens, embarrassed to be different. His campmates, however, are bursting with praise and enthusiastic questions. The story ends abruptly, especially considering its leisurely start. While many kids will relate to this straightforward tale—a clear metaphor for learning to embrace one’s differences—others will be left with questions: How do we cultivate self-love if others don’t accept our differences?
Look here for uncomplicated validation. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781623716820
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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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