A simple, celebratory story of community collaboration and religious tolerance.
In Inuvik, a town 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, a makeshift trailer mosque is no longer adequate for the growing Muslim community.
The cost of building “a bigger one so far north” is prohibitive, so the Winnipeg-based Zubaidah Tallab Foundation steps in to help. Based on a true story, this picture book describes the remarkable project, from fundraising and building the mosque in Winnipeg to transporting it to Inuvik more than 4,000 kilometers away. The mosque’s long-distance journey is fraught with perils and challenges that require the efforts of many people to overcome. Road signs and power lines have to be moved to accommodate the oversized semitrailer conveying The Midnight Sun Mosque over back roads and country highways as it struggles to make it to the last Hay River barge crossing of the season before the winter freeze. Ghare's scenic, digital illustrations do the heavy lifting in this intriguing story narrated in straightforward, spare text. The artwork depicts racially and ethnically diverse communities of Muslims and non-Muslims in both locales. Roman Catholic clerics and Gwich'in First Nations elders are present at the official opening of the new mosque. A short introduction and author's note provide additional details for consideration and discussion.
A simple, celebratory story of community collaboration and religious tolerance. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4598-2760-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Smoother rides are out there.
Mommy and Bonnie—two anthropomorphic rodents—go for a joyride and notice a variety of conveyances around their busy town.
The pair encounter 22 types of vocational vehicles as they pass various sites, including a fire engine leaving a firehouse, a school bus approaching a school, and a tractor trailer delivering goods to a supermarket. Narrated in rhyming quatrains, the book describes the jobs that each wheeled machine does. The text uses simple vocabulary and sentences, with sight words aplenty. Some of the rhymes don't scan as well as others, and the description of the mail truck’s role ("A mail truck brings / letters and cards / to mailboxes / in people's yards) ignores millions of readers living in yardless dwellings. The colorful digitally illustrated spreads are crowded with animal characters of every type hustling and bustling about. Although the art is busy, observant viewers may find humor in details such as a fragile item falling out of a moving truck, a line of ducks holding up traffic, and a squirrel’s spilled ice cream. For younger children enthralled by vehicles, Sally Sutton’s Roadwork (2011) and Elizabeth Verdick’s Small Walt series provide superior text and art and kinder humor. Children who have little interest in cars, trucks, and construction equipment may find this offering a yawner. Despite being advertised as a beginner book, neither text nor art recommend this as an engaging choice for children starting to read independently. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Smoother rides are out there. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-37725-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Younger audiences may be mostly interested in the bonking and stinky parts, but the rudiments are at least in place for...
Ten tales from the Old and New Testaments, with plot points and lessons hidden beneath large, shaped flaps.
Higgins depicts Jesus as a bit larger than those around him but otherwise draws him and the rest of the cast—including angels—with similar-looking round heads, wide-open eyes, slightly crooked beards (on the men), and dark brown or olive skin. Cycling arbitrarily among various tenses, the abbreviated, sanitized, and informally retold episodes begin in “a garden” with the tree, most of Adam and Eve, and the “tricky serpent” who “will trick them” initially hidden beneath die-cut flaps. Lifting the largest reveals the disobedient first couple sporting flashy animal-skin togs and text that promises that “God had a plan to save people from sin.” After Noah boards the “crowded, noisy, and stinky” ark, Moses leads the escape from plague-ridden Egypt (“Frogs and locusts! Yucky sores and flies!”), and “David bonks Goliath.” God’s promise eventually bears fruit with the birth and select miracles of Jesus. In the climactic scene, three distant crosses hide beneath a flap that depicts Jerusalem, while behind a tomb in the foreground an angel literally fizzes with fireworks. Beneath a bush readers see Mary (Magdalen) weeping until the risen Jesus (beneath another bush) gives her a hug: “Go tell the disciples that I am alive!”
Younger audiences may be mostly interested in the bonking and stinky parts, but the rudiments are at least in place for homiletic discussion. (Novelty/religion. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5064-4684-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Beaming Books
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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