A rhyming bullying tale with some worthwhile lessons.
Monster and his little boy tackle Monster’s first day of school.
The big blue beast, resembling one of Sendak’s Wild Things, is a quivering mess at the thought of school, but he quickly settles in and begins to learn and enjoy himself—until he observes his classmates bullying another kid, that is. “He made some friends at recess, who invited him to play. / But when he saw them teasing, he spoke up without delay. / ‘I know we’re friends, but teasing’s wrong. / It’s something I despise, / No one should be ridiculed. There is no compromise.’ ” At these words, his new friends change their ways. Readers may point out that it’s easy for a big blue monster to stand up to bullies but harder for regular kids, but the fact that Monster has feelings just like them will go a long way to making this credible, and Czajak spells it out when he writes “The teasing stopped when Monster / said he wouldn’t go along.” Grieb’s digital artwork plays up Monster’s size and expressions, and the class is diverse. Young readers may need their own educations to tackle some of the vocabulary here—“motivation,” “pursue,” “monumental”—and the rhyming text sometimes stumbles. Still, Monster’s message is an important one, and his boy has a valuable point: “It’s hard to deal with bullies, even harder / when they’re friends.”
A rhyming bullying tale with some worthwhile lessons. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-938063-74-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Mighty Media
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Chilling in the best ways.
When a young rabbit who’s struggling in school finds a helpful crayon, everything is suddenly perfect—until it isn’t.
Jasper is flunking everything except art and is desperate for help when he finds the crayon. “Purple. Pointy…perfect”—and alive. When Jasper watches TV instead of studying, he misspells every word on his spelling test, but the crayon seems to know the answers, and when he uses the crayon to write, he can spell them all. When he faces a math quiz after skipping his homework, the crayon aces it for him. Jasper is only a little creeped out until the crayon changes his art—the one area where Jasper excels—into something better. As guilt-ridden Jasper receives accolade after accolade for grades and work that aren’t his, the crayon becomes more and more possessive of Jasper’s attention and affection, and it is only when Jasper cannot take it anymore that he discovers just what he’s gotten himself into. Reynolds’ text might as well be a Rod Serling monologue for its perfectly paced foreboding and unsettling tension, both gentled by lightly ominous humor. Brown goes all in to match with a grayscale palette for everything but the purple crayon—a callback to black-and-white sci-fi thrillers as much as a visual cue for nascent horror readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Chilling in the best ways. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6588-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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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