Simply charming.
An anthropomorphic house learns that you don’t need fancy decorations to feel loved.
House longs to be adorned with twinkling holiday lights like its neighbors. It watched while a nearby house sparkled for Diwali; another had menorah lights in its window during Hanukkah. Christmas is drawing near, and House desperately hopes for lights of its own when young Huda and her family move in. The home fills with the aroma of cardamom-scented rice and the sounds of a family game…but no one decorates. When Christmas arrives, Huda’s parents go to work so that others can celebrate. House is filled with the joyful noises of Huda’s relatives, who have come to visit; though House may not be decorated, it’s still happy: “I’m full of love and hope.” When Huda’s parents return home late that night, Amma tells a sleepy Huda that she can look forward to beautiful lights for their own holiday, Eid. House is delighted at the news. When the weather turns warm, it’s House who is newly adorned with strings of glittering lights as it proudly hosts an Eid celebration inside and out. Making clear that Muslim celebrations are just as festive as holidays such as Christmas and Hanukkah, Faruqi delivers a refreshing twist on Eid tales. Brimming with details, Alam’s welcoming illustrations capture the closeness of this family; scenes of the lit houses shining in the darkness are especially moving. Vocabulary and visual cues suggest that Huda and her family are of South Asian heritage.
Simply charming. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781250907219
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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