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SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE

Name: SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE
Author: Rachel Montez Minor
ISBN: 9780593309421

by Rachel Montez Minor ; illustrated by Mariyah Rahman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2023

A comforting, useful book for children dealing with loss.

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“This is not goodbye, sweet child. / I’ll see you on the other side….”

Minor’s rhyming, first-person verse reads as though spoken by someone who has already passed away. While belief in the afterlife isn’t universal, many readers will find comfort and peace in the text’s gentle, loving reassurance, which avoids imposing a specific belief system by omitting words like heaven, soul, and spirit. Meanwhile, Rahman’s digital illustrations present diverse children grieving, remembering, and honoring the dead. The opening spread depicts a sleeping brown-skinned child, a photograph of a tan-skinned adult on the nearby nightstand. On the facing page, the same adult pushes the child on a swing. Accompanying text reads, “I’ll still be in your dreams / and all the quiet spaces in between. / My light shines within you, / though it may be unseen.” Later, another child with darker skin and braided black hair stands before an altar decorated for Dia de los Muertos, gazing at a portrait of an elder. Though hints in the visuals cue characters as, for instance, Latine or Muslim, the text is kept general, and its ambiguity around the circumstances of loss in each scene will, in turn, allow a range of readers to relate to the emotions they experience. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A comforting, useful book for children dealing with loss. (Picture book. 3-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023

ISBN: 9780593309421

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE STARS
by Rachel Montez Minor ; illustrated by Annie Won

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CARPENTER'S HELPER

by Sybil Rosen ; illustrated by Camille Garoche ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 2021

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.

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A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.

Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)

Pub Date: March 16, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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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)