A DAY IN CANADA

Name: A DAY IN CANADA
Author: Per-Henrik Gürth
ISBN: 978-1-77138-125-3

by Per-Henrik Gürth ; illustrated by Per-Henrik Gürth ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2015

Simple details and animal characters will attract the youngest lapsitters, who may want to try some of the activities...

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Gürth adds to his series of books about Canada with this look at time.

Beginning in Newfoundland and Labrador and moving west through a single day, readers greet the sun at 6 a.m. and then are introduced to a single location and activity for each of Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories (a map is provided on the endpapers). A bull moose pedals along Confederation Trail at 8:30 a.m. A bit later, a moose calf dances a jig at the Miramichi Folk Festival. The text is framed in a series of gentle imperatives: Explore an old fort, have a picnic, smell the flowers in Assiniboine Park, kayak Lake Louise, hike, pan for gold, barbecue on the beach. Many of these can be done almost any place, though two particularly tempting activities are difficult to do just anywhere: sleep beneath the northern lights and “2:45 p.m. / Slide down the Athabasca Sand Dunes.” An old-fashioned alarm clock in the bottom left corner displays each time in whole hours and 15-minute increments. Gürth’s digital illustrations feature thick black outlines filled with brilliant colors.

Simple details and animal characters will attract the youngest lapsitters, who may want to try some of the activities depicted, even if they can’t do them in the specific Canadian environs described. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-77138-125-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Kids Can

Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
TOGETHER FOREVER
by Nicole Watts & illustrated by Per-Henrik Gürth

- BOOK REVIEW
HOCKEY OPPOSITES
by Yvette Ghione & illustrated by Per-Henrik Gürth

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THE DAY THE CRAYONS MADE FRIENDS

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 3, 2025

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees.

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After Duncan finds his crayons gone—yet again—letters arrive, detailing their adventures in friendship.

Eleven crayons send missives from their chosen spots throughout Duncan’s home (and one from his classroom). Red enjoys the thrill of extinguishing “pretend fires” with Duncan’s toy firetruck. White, so often dismissed as invisible, finds a new calling subbing in for the missing queen on the black-and-white chessboard. “Now everyone ALWAYS SEES ME!…(Well, half the time!)” Pink’s living the dream as a pastry chef helming the Breezy Bake Oven, “baking everything from little cupcakes…to…OTHER little cupcakes!” Teal, who’s hitched a ride to school in Duncan’s backpack, meets the crayons in the boy’s desk and writes, “Guess what? I HAVE A TWIN! How come you never told me?” Duncan wants to see his crayons and “meet their new friends.” A culminating dinner party assembles the crayons and their many guests: a table tennis ball, dog biscuits, a well-loved teddy bear, and more. The premise—personified crayons, away and back again—is well-trammeled territory by now, after over a dozen books and spinoffs, and Jeffers once more delivers his signature cartooning and hand-lettering. Though the pages lack the laugh-out-loud sight gags and side-splittingly funny asides of previous outings, readers—especially fans of the crayons’ previous outings—will enjoy checking in on their pals.

Quirky, familiar fun for series devotees. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 3, 2025

ISBN: 9780593622360

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE FREDDIE TWO PANTS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

- BOOK REVIEW
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY FROM THE CRAYONS
by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)