bookshelf

EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT

Name: EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT
Author: Peter Cheong
ISBN: 9781665917384

by Peter Cheong ; illustrated by Peter Cheong ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 2023

Warm and dreamy, this sweet story captures the joy of finding your pack.

bookshelf

A lone wolf finds comfort in a new friendship.

“Every night at midnight I turn into a wolf,” the young, brown-skinned narrator reveals. The affliction is mostly welcome. With nimble paws and a magnificent tail, this werewolf runs by moonlight, independent and speedy. Still, secretly turning into a wolf every night makes it difficult to maintain friendships and attend sleepovers. “There is no one else like me,” the child reports, at once reveling in the transformation and acknowledging how it has resulted in loneliness. Then a new girl arrives at school. With a long mane of white hair and a wolf pendant around her neck, the tan-skinned girl seems to make friends easily. In the class’s weekly race, she even beats the narrator, who usually wins. That night, the protagonist is joined by a white wolf wearing a familiar pendant. Together, they fly across the rooftops, smiles on their adorable wolf faces…until a misstep leaves the white wolf tumbling to the ground with an injured paw and eventually leads to the protagonist feeling less alone. Cheong’s approachable prose and charming illustrations deliver a heartfelt story about the comfort of community. Human characters are diverse in skin tone and body type. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Warm and dreamy, this sweet story captures the joy of finding your pack. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023

ISBN: 9781665917384

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE WE CAN HEAR THE GIANTS SING
by Peter Cheong ; illustrated by Peter Cheong

bookshelf

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...

bookshelf

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

bookshelf

IT'S NOT EASY BEING A GHOST

From the It's Not Easy Being series

by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2024

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.

bookshelf

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)