A nonjudgmental approach for gently teaching how to deal with life’s setbacks.
Laila is a planner—she has charts for everything.
As the story opens, she’s planning for her birthday party. What will she wear? What games will everyone play? When should the cake be served? Wait....Lightning! Clouds! Her birthday party is ruined!!! “A sparkly SUNSHINE celebration” was guaranteed for all! Before a meltdown takes control of everything, Mommy has some great ideas. Change doesn’t have to mean disaster. The indoor unicorn obstacle-course race is a success—until whoops—there goes the cake! A nervous tummy doesn’t have to mean the party’s over. Laila’s mom has her child take a few minutes of regroup-time with service dog Charlie. And guess what? The birthday kid realizes that unexpected surprises aren’t all bad. Unicorn ice cream cones, a jar full of colorful paper wishes, and a cutout smiling sun save the day. Cotterill’s Little Senses series, addressing anxiety and challenges faced by children with sensory processing disorder and/or on the autistic spectrum, is so upbeat and helpful that parents everywhere can employ these coping mechanisms with any child. The deceptively simple illustrations are dynamic and engaging all on their own—from the little details of Laila soothing herself by foot-petting Charlie to Laila’s look of triumph when she overcomes her disappointment. Laila and Mommy present Black, as does one of her two guests; the other presents White. On-point closing suggestions provided by a children’s mental health expert round out the positive experience. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-16-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
A nonjudgmental approach for gently teaching how to deal with life’s setbacks. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-55347-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
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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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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