bookshelf

TWITCHY WITCHY ITCH

Name: TWITCHY WITCHY ITCH
Author: Priscilla Tey
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8981-0

by Priscilla Tey ; illustrated by Priscilla Tey ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 13, 2021

Cleverly rendered lesson in the perils of witchy housekeeping.

bookshelf

In an effort to clean her house, a young witch goes too far.

Expecting her two “witchy neighbors” for tea in 10 minutes, Itch worries her house might be a “wee bit too twitchy” and “too itchy,” so she frantically dusts and sweeps. With only four minutes remaining, Itch decides there’s still too much itching and casts a spell ordering the “itching and twitching, be gone with a swoosh.” As the clock chimes “tea o’clock,” witch Fidget arrives, and “things in the house [start] to scramble and shift.” Itch feels her brain itch and her fingers twitch. Then witch Glitch appears, and “things in the house [start] to slip and slide,” causing Itch to itch and twitch even more. Itch swooshes another house spell, eliminating the “fidgeting” and “glitching” but also removing Fidget and Glitch. Alone in her spell-cleaned house, Itch wonders if she should just abandon her spells and enjoy her fidgeting and glitching guests. With the clock repetitively ticking away, the text evokes urgency and frenzy, effectively reinforced by lively, comic illustrations populated with kinetic scenes of Itch dusting, sweeping, and swooshing spells. Itch’s house bristles with squiggly black lines representing her itching and twitching. When Fidget arrives, she appears blurred, and Itch’s possessions visually scramble and shift; exaggeratedly pixelated Glitch seems to physically slip and slide along with everything in Itch’s house. All three witches appear White.

Cleverly rendered lesson in the perils of witchy housekeeping. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: July 13, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7636-8981-0

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
COUNTING IN DOG YEARS AND OTHER SASSY MATH POEMS
by Betsy Franco ; illustrated by Priscilla Tey

- BOOK REVIEW
IN-BETWEEN THINGS
by Priscilla Tey ; illustrated by Priscilla Tey

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

TINY T. REX AND THE IMPOSSIBLE HUG

by Jonathan Stutzman ; illustrated by Jay Fleck ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2019

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back.

bookshelf

With such short arms, how can Tiny T. Rex give a sad friend a hug?

Fleck goes for cute in the simple, minimally detailed illustrations, drawing the diminutive theropod with a chubby turquoise body and little nubs for limbs under a massive, squared-off head. Impelled by the sight of stegosaurian buddy Pointy looking glum, little Tiny sets out to attempt the seemingly impossible, a comforting hug. Having made the rounds seeking advice—the dino’s pea-green dad recommends math; purple, New Age aunt offers cucumber juice (“That is disgusting”); red mom tells him that it’s OK not to be able to hug (“You are tiny, but your heart is big!”), and blue and yellow older sibs suggest practice—Tiny takes up the last as the most immediately useful notion. Unfortunately, the “tree” the little reptile tries to hug turns out to be a pterodactyl’s leg. “Now I am falling,” Tiny notes in the consistently self-referential narrative. “I should not have let go.” Fortunately, Tiny lands on Pointy’s head, and the proclamation that though Rexes’ hugs may be tiny, “I will do my very best because you are my very best friend” proves just the mood-lightening ticket. “Thank you, Tiny. That was the biggest hug ever.” Young audiences always find the “clueless grown-ups” trope a knee-slapper, the overall tone never turns preachy, and Tiny’s instinctive kindness definitely puts him at (gentle) odds with the dinky dino star of Bob Shea’s Dinosaur Vs. series.

Wins for compassion and for the refusal to let physical limitations hold one back. (Picture book. 5-7)