Totally fun and dynamic.
Traffic threatens to thwart Little Lobo’s delivery.
Little Lobo and his friends make another appearance in Raúl the Third’s latest installment in the World of ¡Vamos! series. Like “thousands of people [who] cross from one side of the bridge to the other,” Little Lobo heads over from one country to the other, bound for “la gran celebración” with party supplies and a band made up of frogs and a snake who rattles a maraca. As the hours go by and the group waits for their turn to cross the bridge, “the day turns into night,” and the characters begin to lose their patience and get hungry. But there are food trucks in line too! Soon Little Lobo and his friends discover the smorgasbord of culinary options around them and that so long as you have good friends and good music, you can have a party anywhere. Like the other books in the series, this outing excels in its inclusion of cultural references in its illustrations: Cantinflas, El Chavo del Ocho’s barrel, tuna-fruit vendors, T-shirts displaying El Paso’s area code, and the Juárez X are only some of the details that Raúl the Third gets right about life and culture in the depicted area. Spanish vocabulary is intertwined throughout the text as well as appearing in both the occasional labels in the illustrations and the handy glossary at the end. The iconic illustration style is enhanced by Bay’s colors, which bring the vibrant spirit of the border to the page. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Totally fun and dynamic. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-38040-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Versify/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads.
Emma deals with jitters before playing the guitar in the school talent show.
Pop musician Kevin Jonas and his wife, Danielle, put performance at the center of their picture-book debut. When Emma is intimidated by her very talented friends, the encouragement of her younger sister, Bella, and the support of her family help her to shine her own light. The story is straightforward and the moral familiar: Draw strength from your family and within to overcome your fears. Employing the performance-anxiety trope that’s been written many times over, the book plods along predictably—there’s nothing really new or surprising here. Dawson’s full-color digital illustrations center a White-presenting family along with Emma’s three friends of color: Jamila has tanned skin and wears a hijab; Wendy has dark brown skin and Afro puffs; and Luis has medium brown skin. Emma’s expressive eyes and face are the real draw of the artwork—from worry to embarrassment to joy, it’s clear what she’s feeling. A standout double-page spread depicts Emma’s talent show performance, with a rainbow swirl of music erupting from an amp and Emma rocking a glam outfit and electric guitar. Overall, the book reads pretty plainly, buoyed largely by the artwork. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Nice enough but not worth repeat reads. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35207-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
The snappy text will get toes tapping, but the information it carries is limited.
Dancing is one of the most universal elements of cultures the world over.
In onomatopoeic, rhyming text, Bolling encourages readers to dance in styles including folk dance, classical ballet, breakdancing, and line dancing. Read aloud, the zippy text will engage young children: “Tappity Tap / Fingers Snap,” reads the rhyme on the double-page spread for flamenco; “Jiggity-Jig / Zig-zag-zig” describes Irish step dancing. The ballet pages stereotypically include only children in dresses or tutus, but one of these dancers wears hijab. Overall, children included are racially diverse and vary in gender presentation. Diaz’s illustrations show her background in animated films; her active child dancers generally have the large-eyed sameness of cartoon characters. The endpapers, with shoes and musical instruments, could become a matching game with pages in the book. The dances depicted are described at the end, including kathak from India and kuku from Guinea, West Africa. Unfortunately, these explanations are quite rudimentary. Kathak dancers use their facial expressions extensively in addition to the “movements of their hands and their jingling feet,” as described in the book. Although today kuku is danced at all types of celebrations in several countries, it was once done after fishing, an activity acknowledged in the illustrations but not mentioned in the explanatory text.
The snappy text will get toes tapping, but the information it carries is limited. (Informational picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63592-142-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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