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MY LITTLE SMALL

Name: MY LITTLE SMALL
Author: Ulf Stark
ISBN: 978-1-59270-209-1

by Ulf Stark ; illustrated by Linda Bondestam ; translated by Annie Prime ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2018

Generously open to young readers’ interpretations, this Swedish import lingers

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A stony, lonely, mountain-dwelling Creature longs for companionship.

Prime’s translation conveys Stark’s fey tale to English-speaking readers with understated whimsy. Immured in her cave during the day to escape the harmful rays of the sun, the Creature thinks the world outside is as gray as her cave. She “dreams of the moon and of having someone small to sing to and care for.” At night, she emerges. She tries to swim to the moon, but it “shatter[s] into a thousand gleams.” She sings, “GRRR,” and blows spit bubbles as she looks up at it. The Creature is intemperate in her loneliness, and young readers will understand how her grumpiness leads her to pound the walls. Then a stray sun spark flies into her cave and becomes, for a single day, the Creature’s new Little Small. They aren’t really compatible at all, but the Creature does her best to understand the spark, who shows her the world’s colors and describes its landscapes and inhabitants. While their relationship is as evanescent as, well, a spark, it is nevertheless transformative for both; the Creature can now see colors, and the tiny spark sings a farewell “GRR” as it travels back to the Sun, lofted up in a spit bubble. Bondestam’s collage illustrations depict the Creature as a gray, pear-shaped figure with pointy teeth that somehow don’t seem scary at all.

Generously open to young readers’ interpretations, this Swedish import lingers . (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: March 27, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-59270-209-1

Page Count: 52

Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
CAN YOU WHISTLE, JOHANNA?
by Ulf Stark ; illustrated by Anna Höglund ; translated by Julia Marshall

- BOOK REVIEW
THE RUNAWAYS
by Ulf Stark ; illustrated by Kitty Crowther ; translated by Julia Marshall

- BOOK REVIEW
THE MIDSUMMER TOMTE AND THE LITTLE RABBITS
by Ulf Stark ; illustrated by Eva Eriksson

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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)

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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IT'S NOT EASY BEING A GHOST

From the It's Not Easy Being series

by Marilyn Sadler ; illustrated by Stephanie Laberis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2024

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet.

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A ghost longs to be scary, but none of the creepy personas she tries on fit.

Misty, a feline ghost with big green eyes and long whiskers, wants to be the frightening presence that her haunted house calls for, but sadly, she’s “too cute to be spooky.” She dons toilet paper to resemble a mummy, attempts to fly on a broom like a witch, and howls at the moon like a werewolf. Nothing works. She heads to a Halloween party dressed reluctantly as herself. When she arrives, her friends’ joyful screams reassure her that she’s great just as she is. Sadler’s message, though a familiar one, is delivered effectively in a charming, ghostly package. Misty truly is too precious to be frightening. Laberis depicts an endearingly spooky, all-animal cast—a frog witch, for instance, and a crocodilian mummy. Misty’s sidekick, a cheery little bat who lends support throughout, might be even more adorable than she is. Though Misty’s haunted house is filled with cobwebs and surrounded by jagged, leafless trees, the charming characters keep things from ever getting too frightening. The images will encourage lingering looks. Clearly, there’s plenty that makes Misty special just as she is—a takeaway that adults sharing the book with their little ones should be sure to drive home.

Too cute to be spooky indeed but most certainly sweet. (Picture book. 4-6)