Nature plus ninjas make a winning combination!
A small green ninja makes nature a little brighter at the backyard level in this action-centered book for nature warriors.
Nature Ninja, a kid ninja shaped vaguely like a human, with a soft round body in the green hue of a cartoon turtle (and no hair) loves nature. Nature Ninja is a kid on a mission: The natural world needs saving! The Amazon Rainforest is being destroyed. There’s a Climate Emergency! The oceans are full of garbage. Nature Ninja wants to solve all of that. “BUT WAIT! I don’t live anywhere near the Amazon Rainforest. I’m actually not even allowed out of my backyard by myself. AND I’m only ONE little ninja,” the child bemoans. Luckily, Nature Ninja’s owl friend, Boobook, has plenty of wisdom, and Nature Ninja launches into several kid-friendly backyard projects that empower kids to change the world one small step at a time. Many books focus too much on the big issues, but Moloney’s three suggestions—planting trees, building a bee hotel, and encouraging parents to let parts of the backyard stay wild—are easy enough to tackle. Sardi’s final illustration, a two-page spread of the whole neighborhood, swarms with details, showing even more possibilities to spark the imagination. While each small project won’t save the world on its own (changes on the national and international level are needed, too), the hope offered here—in the accessible tone, repeated vocabulary, and soft pastel digital illustrations—is a sure-fire inspiration for budding environmentalists.
Nature plus ninjas make a winning combination!Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780645730500
Page Count: 31
Publisher: Nurture in Nature Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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