It is said that one in every seven Americans has Brooklyn roots; this lively love song to Brooklyn’s 2.5 million people and...
An engaging and hip alphabetical trip through the largest and most populous of New York City’s five boroughs—Kings County—better known as Brooklyn.
The Canadian-born Alko embraces her adopted borough. She's a curious and avid collector of human experience and visual delights. The book is organized alphabetically but eccentrically. For example, "ornaments," "Ocean Parkway," "organic foods" and the "Old Stone House" (George Washington’s headquarters during the Battle of Brooklyn) all appear on the same letter “O” page. Despite these and other Brooklyn "insider" choices, readers will be attracted by the book’s kid-centric style and hold on for the Cyclonelike roller-coaster ride ("C"—"Coney Island") because of the book’s celebratory look and feel. Kaleidoscopic mixed-media pages (gouache and collage) are chockablock with vibrant images that fairly burst from the pages. A pleasantly informative author’s note and a rudimentary map attempt to orient and situate the reader. Though families who seek a simple and straightforward “A is for apple”–style alphabet book will be disappointed, the more venturesome will want to pay a visit to Brooklyn and return to sample the book's (and borough's) vitality over and over again.
It is said that one in every seven Americans has Brooklyn roots; this lively love song to Brooklyn’s 2.5 million people and nearly 82 square miles is a welcome celebration of its rich ethnic, culinary, racial and religious diversity. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9213-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color.
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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