A celebration of life's little pleasures.
A young South Asian girl is excited to pick mangoes with her family.
As the family walks to the mango tree, the young narrator is thrilled: She’s finally old enough to help pick them. Her brother tells her that everyone has a mango memory. He describes the excitement he felt climbing a tree for the first time to pluck mangoes. When the girl begins to climb, however, she gets dizzy. Seeing her upset, her father reminisces about how, when he was a boy, a generous benefactor shared mangoes from his orchard. The narrator’s grandmother tries to get her excited again by pointing a well-aimed stone at the hard-to-reach mangoes, but despite her many tries, the girl keeps missing. She frets that she hasn’t created any joyful memories. At home, the family delights in their harvest, with mango juice dripping down their chins and sticky pulp covering their faces, and the girl realizes that she’s found her mango memory. Singh brings to life the excitement of waiting to pick—and finally eating—mangoes: a tradition observed by many South Asian families. Though the writing is a bit flat in places, the family’s joyful bonding is palpable, and Ali’s images brim with warmth, especially the mangoes, which pop against the page. Characters are depicted with a wide range of brown skin tones.
A celebration of life's little pleasures. (Hindi glossary, author’s note, mango facts) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593486252
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Random
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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