Demonstrates the courage of following your heart.
Big feelings call for a big valentine.
Bobby, a tan-skinned youngster with round spectacles, is smitten with his best friend, Eddie, a brown-skinned boy with a gap-toothed smile. Bobby and Eddie are inseparable. They ride bikes, they bake cookies, and for Halloween they even dress up together as a knight and prince. For Valentine’s Day, Bobby wants to show Eddie how much he means to him with a very special card. He has some pretty bold criteria: “The card would have to be colorful…and sparkly…and BIG! As big as Bobby’s heart felt when they were together.” Bobby creates a large heart cutout with many layers of meaning (and many layers of glue). Along the way, he has flashes of insecurity but also strong moments of resolve. “He [has] to believe that Eddie [will] always be by his side.” When the pair meet at school, Eddie has an equally large card for Bobby. In an explosion of hearts, rainbows, butterflies, and sparkles—along with the biggest, most joyful smiles on the two tots’ faces—Bobby and Eddie show the world their true feelings. Woitas expertly charts the quiet but potent dramas that Bobby experiences, while Sonda’s art—which turns delightfully childlike for images of the card—sets a gentle tone. This is a charming queer read-aloud, ideal for Valentine’s Day or at any time of year.
Demonstrates the courage of following your heart. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780593659779
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
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
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