Recommended for preschool and elementary collections on family topics.
A child struggles with complex feelings as their parents divorce.
The brown-haired, light-skinned narrator and their parents are a tightknit family. With their mom, the protagonist bakes, draws, and builds cardboard houses; with their dad, they go on walks, make up stories, and roughhouse. They love their time with each parent, but when all three are together, things don’t always go as smoothly. Mom and Dad often argue, make up with the help of their child, and return to normal until they inevitably argue again. This vicious cycle culminates with the narrator’s father leaving their home permanently to live elsewhere. The main character is understandably distraught, asking, “Why aren’t we happy together instead of having those sad feelings apart?” With a helpful piece of advice from their mother, they learn to embrace their separate lives with each parent and their respective partners, and to accept the changing, less conventional shape of their family. Here, Nikolova tackles a topic more common in real life than in children’s literature. Her writing is somewhat stilted, and occasional time skips may require assistance for young readers to fill in the gaps. Popova’s illustrations almost always portray the child with one parent at a time; when the father leaves, she removes all color from the otherwise visually vivid story as the main character struggles with their sadness.
Recommended for preschool and elementary collections on family topics.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781545815816
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Papercutz
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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