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FOLLOW ME

Name: FOLLOW ME
Author: Tricia Tusa
ISBN: 978-0-547-27201-6

by Tricia Tusa & illustrated by Tricia Tusa ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2011

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This book starts with the cover, a picture of a small girl with a large braid getting onto a swing under a tree. On the endpapers, a swirl of greens and yellows are overlain with the vibrant line of petal, leaf and bud. “I wander through pink,” says the girl on the first page, swinging high over pale roses and other blooms against a pastel sky, “and get lost in blue,” she continues, swinging and smiling at the vast blue sky. She swings until, released in her imagination, she flies through the greenness of those endpapers and into a stand of trees, “Follow me, follow me / deep into brown, / into the bright white of yellow, / into orange / that slips into red, / all tumbled together.” She is truly flying now, in an airy sea of leaves and birds, insects and seedpods. She returns to the swing, then to the ground to twirl and twirl into her own backyard. The beautiful etchings are rich in color and alive with vibrant line. All of what she sees—trees and sky, leaves and seeds, birds and flowers—are in her backyard, but she has transformed them with the power of her imagination as strongly as if she had sprinkled them with fairy dust. A glorious visual meditation on light, color and home for even the smallest child and artist. (Picture book. 4-9)

Pub Date: April 18, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-547-27201-6

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: March 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
IS THAT YOU, ELEANOR SUE?
by Tricia Tusa ; illustrated by Tricia Tusa

- BOOK REVIEW
A VIOLIN FOR ELVA
by Mary Lyn Ray ; illustrated by Tricia Tusa

- BOOK REVIEW
MARLENE, MARLENE, QUEEN OF MEAN
by Jane Lynch with Lara Embry with A.E. Mikesell ; illustrated by Tricia Tusa

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

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How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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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)