This fun, powerful, and empowering tale belongs on every shelf.
A girl arrives at the barbershop with hair everywhere and leaves with the freshest fade.
The adventure starts when the narrator walks into the barbershop, where Black folks are working, styling, sitting, and talking. The child sits and asks for “THE FRESHEST FADE UP ON THE BLOCK!” Instead of getting right to it, the hairdresser suggests other options—a trim, an Afro, cornrows— and cuts bit by bit. As the girl’s hair slowly gets shorter, other patrons suggest different options, like spikes, twists, or locs. Time passes as the suggestions keep pouring in, and the hairdresser and the child’s mother become visibly distressed. Finally, it all comes to an end when the child’s hair is short enough for her to say, “Just line me up.” The rhyming text is great fun to read, with perfect rhythm and style, though at times it can be slightly difficult to tell who is talking. The call and response detailing myriad creative Black hairstyles is both a humorous romp and a glorious celebration of Black beauty. The gentle message of a girl choosing her own look despite others’ attachment to her long hair is neither lost nor overdone. Thomas’ illustrations attend to every detail and exude energy, community, and warmth as they cycle through interesting characters and the narrator’s many different looks en route to her chosen fade. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
This fun, powerful, and empowering tale belongs on every shelf. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-38708-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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