A tale of Christmas cheer hampered by a problematic takeaway.
One teacher knits up a minor miracle.
Fresh snow on the day before Christmas vacation means a fun-filled, extra-long recess for Miss Mary’s class. But the event falls well below the beloved teacher’s expectations—the snow angels have no wings, and the hockey game is short-lived. The reason? All the children have to tuck their cold hands into their coat pockets. So Miss Mary, who loves to knit her own clothes, decides to make mittens for all the students for Christmas, but the store is out of yarn. Determined, she rushes home and unravels her own gloves, plus her hat and scarf. Realizing that’s not enough yarn for 20 pairs of mittens, she raids the rest of her house for more material. For two days, she knits and knits. On Christmas morning, the students find wrapped packages on their front steps. They pause their excited outdoor play to thank Miss Mary. Though the story focuses on the holiday’s values of giving and gratitude, it positions the best teachers as angelic, sacrificing miracle workers—a rosy perspective at odds with the efforts of actual, overworked educators. Andriani’s artwork has a classic feel, in the inked-cartoon vein of Peggy Parish’s Amelia Bedelia (1963), illustrated by Fritz Siebel. The book includes instructions, aimed at intermediate knitters, for making a mitten ornament. Among a racially diverse class and small town, Miss Mary is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A tale of Christmas cheer hampered by a problematic takeaway. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5341-1167-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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