A loving familial tale with deep roots.
Seven-year-old Rose and her beloved grandfather make a Persian rug.
Brown-skinned Rose and Baba joon live in a “city so old, they call it ancient,” marked by gilded minarets. Each morning, Baba joon makes rugs at a factory; in the afternoon, he makes rugs for friends and family. Rose wants to learn, too, so Baba joon shows her how. After they dye yarn using poppies, saffron, roses, and indigo, Baba joon teaches Rose to weave on the loom, tying one of the many thousands of knots that make up a rug. Like the rugs that he makes using a machine at the factory, the ones he creates at home by hand have elegant, intricate floral patterns—but these are even more kaleidoscopic. When Baba joon falls ill, Rose continues working on their rug on her own, channeling his expertise as her own skills develop. When they dance together on their finished rug, which features an image of them both in a garden, it’s a triumph of intergenerational connection. This tribute to an ancient craft that continues into the present demonstrates that a handmade object is truly irreplaceable. Inspired by Kheiriyeh’s childhood in Iran, the art is saturated with both pigment and feeling. Rose’s family brims with warmth and creativity; readers will revel in the opportunity to spend time with them.
A loving familial tale with deep roots. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780593705100
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
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
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
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