Sarie, a South African first grader, loves school but hates to read out loud to the class. She always stumbles, and Charmaine and Carmen laugh at her. Her friend Emile is cute and offers encouraging smiles, but Sarie still has no self-confidence. She spends her Sundays with Auntie Anna pretending to drive a rusted-out car. One Sunday, bored of “driving,” Sarie finds an old picture book of Cinderella. She and Auntie Anna read it together. Sarie takes the book to school, envisions the words in her head, but still stumbles in reading. Auntie Anna makes reading practice more fun by dressing Sarie up like Cinderella, and Sarie improves and proves herself in front of the class and the principal. She invites Emile over for a Sunday “drive,” and together they enjoy the near magic of the South African desert. Daly (Old Bob’s Brown Bear, 2002, etc.) once again captures a moment in a South African childhood and makes it universal with a simple story and beautiful watercolor illustrations. Sarie’s confusion and subsequent joy are evident in her face as she and the reader discover the once-upon-a-time magic that reading offers together. This is an excellent choice for one-on-one sharing or lap story times. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 10, 2003
ISBN: 0-374-35633-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
The can’t-miss subject of this Step into Reading series entry—a unicorn with a magic horn who also longs for wings—trumps its text, which is dry even by easy-reader standards. A boy unicorn, whose horn has healing powers, reveals his wish to a butterfly in a castle garden, a bluebird in the forest and a snowy white swan in a pond. Falling asleep at the edge of the sea, the unicorn is visited by a winged white mare. He heals her broken wing and she flies away. After sadly invoking his wish once more, he sees his reflection: “He had big white wings!” He flies off after the mare, because he “wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’ ” Perfectly suiting this confection, Silin-Palmer’s pictures teem with the mass market–fueled iconography of what little girls are (ostensibly) made of: rainbows, flowers, twinkly stars and, of course, manes down to there. (Easy reader. 4-7)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 0-375-83117-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
Pedestrian.
Mr. Brown can’t help with farm chores because his shoes are missing—a common occurrence in his household and likely in many readers’ as well.
Children will be delighted that the titular Mr. Brown is in fact a child. After Mr. Brown looks in his closet and sorts through his other family members’ shoes with no luck, his father and his siblings help him search the farm. Eventually—after colorful pages that enable readers to spot footwear hiding—the family gives up on their hunt, and Mr. Brown asks to be carried around for the chores. He rides on his father’s shoulders as Papa gets his work done, as seen on a double-page spread of vignettes. The resolution is more of a lesson for the adult readers than for children, a saccharine moment where father and son express their joy that the missing shoes gave them the opportunity for togetherness—with advice for other parents to appreciate those fleeting moments themselves. Though the art is bright and cheerful, taking advantage of the setting, it occasionally is misaligned with the text (for example, the text states that Mr. Brown is wearing his favorite green shirt while the illustration is of a shirt with wide stripes of white and teal blue, which could confuse readers at the point where they’re trying to figure out which family member is Mr. Brown). The family is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Pedestrian. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5460-0389-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: WorthyKids/Ideals
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
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